


Seedscapade

by RowenaIsKween



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Crack, Daddy Issues, F/M, Fluff, Jacob is a dad, John and the dep are good parents, John is a good daddy, Like, Marijuana, NO DEATH, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Pregnancy, Recreational Drug Use, Tags Are Hard, Time Travel, a shit ton of daddy issues, cultists are fricken nuts, i know i added sharky and faith but they actually aren't involved much as a couple, jospeh is trying his best, no one dies, some bad google translate spanish, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-10-05 08:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17321363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowenaIsKween/pseuds/RowenaIsKween
Summary: Set after the nuclear bombs have dropped. Basically a New Dawn type of fic.Larry Parker's teleportation machine turn things upside down for the Seed kids as they time travel 17 years into the past. As they scramble not to fuck up the future so much, Hope County is struggling from a civil war between the Peggies and the Resistance.Boy, are they in for a hell of a family reunion.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hiya guys, first far cry fic here, so.... anyway, after i found out father joe had a baby girl (that he killed), my imaginative mind started running in miles in a way that i never could. Combine an active imagination with boredom = this soooo, HAVE FUN!!

Hope County, Montana, 2035

 

The blinding beam of sunlight and the tiny particles of floating dust were the first things that Bridget’s eyes saw when she blearily tried to pry them open. The second thing her senses felt, of course, was the delicious and mouth-watering aroma of breakfast flooding her nostrils. Patting rather violently at the dresser beside her corner bed- her endless amount of hair ties that always seemed to get lost (uh, girl problems) scattered in various colours, a myriad of fun little trinkets that she’d collected from the outside which served no purpose but for pure mismatched aesthetic; the glass vase of the vibrant and shocking pink super bloom that her cute next door neighbour had given to her (her father hadn’t been all too happy at the attention, grumbling like a bear but her mum had only laughed it off cooing over the sheer cuteness of it)- all vibrated and littered her already messier-than-a-garbage-dump room; all in a vain attempt to search for the phone that was as ancient as her old Uncle Jacob (please don’t tell him she said that).

 

Then again, it’s not like there’s much of a need for cellular devices when signal towers littered the county like fallen trees in a forest.

 

“Where the hell is my phone…” Bridget muttered quietly, before groaning in absolute frickin’ frustration.

 

“MAX!” she roared early in the morning. Her voice really did not like the strain it was being put under if the embarrassing break in her voice was anything to go by.

 

That boy, the absolute devilspawn, son of the great evil Satan, came bounding to her door. “Yes?” he singsonged in such an innocent matter that Bridget just wanted to wipe that stupid look off of her brother’s face with a windshield wiper.

 

“Gimme back my phone, hellspawn,” she demanded. The dramatic rage built up in her, adrenaline building up; she felt like she could wrestle one of those big beefy guys that used to beat each other for fun. She could run a whole damn mile with the kind of energy she had now!

 

“Don’t have it,” the boy said pointedly. “And your breath reeks like honey badger roadkill, bum-bum.”

 

SIlence. Silence. Silence.

 

Max let out a shriek and turned so quickly, his soul almost left him, his feet padding against the floor as he let out a gleeful laugh. Insulting his sister was such a fun hobby. Bounding down the stairs, fleeing for his life, but not really paying any attention to his surroundings, he crashed into a wall of dad.

 

“Oof!” Unprepared for his son’s assault on him, John got the wind knocked out of him, but of course, he wrapped his much larger hands around the boy in a hug. He would never admit it, but old age really was getting to him (let’s not forget, of course, what an absolute drama queen John motherfucking Seed is).

 

“What’d I say about running around the house?” he barked at his son. Max grinned madly, blue eyes twinkling with mirth, his cheeks flushed red. “I’m not running, Daddy, I’m surviving.”

 

By now, John really should know that where Max runs, Bridget chases.

 

With a yelp, the second body of his eldest crashes into him, sending all of them down on a heap on the floor. Max shrieks again, desperately trying to avoid getting caught by his sister, whose feet are digging rather uncomfortably into John’s ribs.

 

“Yeow!” John yelps as his poor old man’s body (not) is abused by his own flesh and blood, who were now wrestling like WWE fighters. And right on top of him too!

 

“Ow, Bridget!”

 

“Your stinky feet!”

 

“Your crushing weights!”

 

The sound of soft laughter, like a gentle breeze flowing on a hot summer day, echoed throughout the room. There, in all her five months pregnant glory, stood Rook, one hand resting upon her belly, the other on her waist.

 

Immediately, Max bolted and hid behind his mom and in a true child-like fashion, stuck his tongue out at his sister.

 

“Daddy, Max took my phone again,” Bridget complained, still laying atop her father.

 

“Off,” John wheezed. Bridget rolled off of him.

 

“Your phone is on the table, blind woman!” Max chided. “Maybe you should look with your eyes, not your mouth-AGH!” Rook gently smacked her son across the head.

 

“Breakfast is waiting, you buffoons, now eat before it gets cold.” She waddled back into the dining room.

 

“No one’s going to help me up?” John asked with a resigned voice from his spot on the floor, laid out dramatically like a starfish.

 

“Nope!”

 

“I thought I taught you to say ‘yes’,” John accused, his voice deadpanned, blue eyes filled with fake betrayal. Only the floaty sound of laughter was the response.

 

…

 

Breakfast was a familiar family affair that the Seeds relished greatly. John at the head, Rook the right, and Max and Bridget on the opposite.

 

Fluffy pancakes and drizzled with syrup and scrambled eggs and fruit and meat were all piled high on the luxurious mahogany table that John just had to shove in his bunker.

 

“What’s the occasion?” Max asked through a mouth full of food.

 

“Close your mouth, brat,” Bridget admonished. “Disgusting.” She failed to notice the knowing look her parents gave to each other.

 

“Farewell breakfast,” her mother commented. “Think of it as a celebratory breakfast for finally convincing your cousins to drag you along with them.”

 

 _Ah,_ Bridget thought, _that._

 

Hannah, Camila, and Domenico, her three cousins, were all leaders and commanders in the Resistance against the Highwaymen, therefore making them very, _very_ busy people. They were all reluctant to let Bridget get involved in the Resistance, even with just planning. It didn’t help that Bridget was just coming out of being sixteen, only just a child.

 

 _You’re only a kid,_ they’d always say to her.

 

 _Carmina’s seventeen, but you let her fight with you,_ Bridget argued with them.

 

They never answered back.

 

Bridget’s outing today hoped that she could finally prove to her cousins that she was mature, capable of handling responsibility. They were supposed to be scouting out old Holland Valley for unclaimed places to expand their territory, claim them for the Resistance instead before the Highwaymen got to it first.

 

“Why can’t I come?” Max demanded.

 

“Because I’m your mother and I said so,” Rook retorted, shoving a forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.

 

Max murmured something under his breath.

 

“Max,” John warned. “Don’t start again.” His tattooed hand came to rest on Rook’s belly and palmed it. “Now finish your food so you can get ready for your lessons; your mother and I need to talk to your sister.”

 

“Ohhhh, I don’t like the sound of this ‘talk’,” Bridget began to stand up and put her dishes away in the sink but not before being tripped by Max.

 

She accidentally spilled some of her syrup on him in turn.

 

“Bridget,” her mother admonished. “Just go upstairs and get ready, please.”

 

Why gladly, mmother,she thought, bounding up to her room. She opened her closet door, browsing through her clothing, figuring which one was the best to wear. Jeans? Nope, so Bridget threw that out of the way. Leggins were just simply a no-no, so that was thrown too and she wasn’t even going to consider the random mini skirt at the bottom of the pile.

 

So Bridget moved on to her shirt, but that wasn’t really a problem. A simple dri-fit shirt would do, under the bulletproof vest, she _knew_ her cousins were going to make her wear.

 

“Your room looks like a tornado blew past it,” her father’s voice remarked fondly behind her. His footsteps cam close to her back.

 

“Yes, a tornado of not knowing which pants to wear!” she exclaimed. “I can’t wear jeans, they’re too casual. Hannah and Camila and Domenico are gonna think I’m not taking this seriously enough and then they’re gonna find a stupid reason to not include me and then I’ll be left out forever and Carmina’s gonna be going on missions with them, while I’m stuck inside this stupid camp forever!” Bridget took a deep breath after her rant. She felt her father’s hand gently take her chin into his palm.

 

“Stop worrying about this so much, princess,” he calmed her. “It’s not even a mission, just a scouting adventure, yeah? All you’re doing is driving around Holland Valley looking for land. That’s it, now _breathe_.”

 

Bridget wrapped her arms around her dad and buried her face in his chest. “I feel like I’m starting to regret this,” she confessed. “Like I’m not ready,”

 

“Yes, yes you are,” John corrected her. “You’ve been looking forward to this since forever; now go to your mother, I’m sure she’ll have something for you.”

 

Bridget stood up and followed her dad’s orders. Her parents’ room was all the way at the edge of the hallway, far from any other room on the floor. She remembered going into their room as a child, launching herself up on their bed to wake them up for the day, just right after her Uncle Joseph said that it was okay for them to finally leave their bunkers. _Why were they even in the bunkers in the first place?_ Bridget thought.

 

“Mommy, I have nothing to wear,” Bridget stated despondently. “Daddy said you’d have something for me.”

 

“I do,” Rook soothed her daughter. She handed Bridget a pair of well-worn cropped green cargo pants, with plenty of pockets. “They’ll fit you, I’m sure. Now come; your father and I have to talk with you before you leave.”

 

What perfect timing for John to walk into the room.

 

Rook patted the spot on the bed beside her. “How do you feel, baby?”

 

Bridget sighed. “Feeling just peachy, mommy.”

 

“Aw, you’ll be fine, Bridget. Look, if worse comes to worst, I stole your phone and put all of our pictures in it,” her mom said.

 

“Rook!” John said indignantly. “I really don’t think that’s helping, baby.”

 

He turned to her. “Look, no matter what happens on this mission, you’ll be great okay? You’ll always have people with you who love you and believe in you and know you can do it.” John wrapped his big and warm and comfy tattooed hands around his daughter. “Even if you think we’re not there for you, we will be okay? _Don’t you ever forget that."_

 

His eyes were so sincere looking down at his only daughter, but he couldn’t help it. Bridget could see his blue eyes shining with so much love and warmth and _pride_ , it made her feel all gooey inside. Bridget wrapped her arms around her dad again, loving the feeling of safety and comfort he gave her. He’d always be there when she needed him and that was a promise she knew he dad wasn’t ever going to break.

 

A sniffle interrupted the father and daughter’s moment. “I’m still here you know,” Rook sniffled. “But what you father said, sweet baby.”

 

John took both of his girls (and maybe even a future one in his wife’s belly) into his arms and hummed. A silent moment of love occured between the three.

 

Until, of course, the booming pounding of knocks interrupted along with the loud and vivacious voice of Camila going “What’s up, _primito?_ ” and Hannah’s audible sigh at the elder’s antics.

 

“That’s my cue,” Bridget mumbled, her face squished in her father’s chest. When he refused to let go of her, she tapped is cheek not gently. “Daddy, let go!”

 

John hummed. “We’re coming with you by the way,”

 

“What!” Bridget exclaimed the same time as her mother’s bewildered “We are?”

 

“Just dropping you off, don’t worry.”

 

“Where would you even drop us off?” Bridget asked she headed downstairs. “Not like there’s a set destination.”

 

“Fine then, just seeing you off,”

 

Hannah and Camila were both already making themselves at home by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs and Max was incessantly pestering them with questions.

 

“I wanna come,” he demanded again. “I’ll shove myself in the trunk and mom and dad will never have to know that I self-napped myself.”

 

“Not how it works, son,” Rook said. “How are you two?” she nodded at the two older girls.

 

“Me va _muy_ bien _, tia,_ como esta _?_ ” Camila greeted, her Colombian accent taking full control as she spoke in her native tongue. “Just here to steal your daughter for a seedscapade and I promise we’ll have her back to you in no time!”

 

A thoughtful frown shaped upon her face. “Don’t know if she’ll be in full piece though, _no_ _estamos haciendo promesas._ ”

 

“I promise we’ll have her back in full piece, auntie.” Hannah sighed, a cup of water in her hand.

 

“You don’t know that!” Camila argued.

 

“ _Camila, ve_ por _Domenico,_ por _favor_.” she retorted. Despite being the eldest of the cousins, Camila was very much young at heart and so she stuck her tongue out at Hannah but did as the younger did anyway.

 

Hannah stood up and approached Bridget. “You ready?” she asked softly. “I know how long you’ve been wanting to go with us and now you have that chance. You’re sure you want to take it?”

 

Bridget nodded. “Yes,” she said, with only the slightest hint of doubt.

 

Hannah smiled at her. “Well then let’s not waste any time, then.” And with that, the Seed cousins headed on out to the camp.

 

…

 

Prosperity was founded by the survivors of the Collapse after the bombs had dropped and the seven years in the bunker was up. The hostilities between the two factions of Hope County were not eradicated so easily, but for the sake of survival, they managed to make it work, especially with the same, new threat of the highwaymen on the rise.

 

All over the place, Prosperity was hustling and bustling with the daily activities of the people that inhabited it. Lessons off to one secluded corner of the camp where Nick Rye and Faith Seed teaches some of the children of the survivors and a training facility on the opposite side, filled with people practicing their aims and hits. Over on the horizon, several houses and other buildings littered the camp, populated with Peggies and Resistance members and newcomers alike. It was noisy and crowded, but it was the only stable home Bridget had ever known.

 

“Jet!” shouted the voice of Bridget’s bestest friend, Carmina; she was Uncle Nick and Aunt Kim’s daughter, her godparents and they’ve been inseparable since day one.

 

Carmina with her short brown hair bounded over to them. “Hi Uncle John, Aunt Rook,” she waved breathlessly to them.

 

“Hi, Carmina,” they greeted warmly back. The girl turned back to Bridget.

 

“I really wanted to come with you on this mission since it was your first one, and I wanted to fool around with you, but Mom and Dad didn’t even let me finish before telling me no!” she pouted indignantly. “Said something about it being a family affair or something.”

 

“What?” Bridget asked in disbelief. “I don’t mind, ask your parents again!”

 

“You gotta come with me then, cause then they’re gonna say yes,”

 

“What a fuckin’ power move,” Hannah chuckled under her breath. “As much fun as it would be to bring Carmina with us, it is supposed to be a stealthy outing, you know,” she said, heading over to the beat-up pickup that was waiting for them by the camp’s outskirt.

 

Bridget noticed much of her family gathered around the car- her two uncles Jacob and Joseph with her aunt Faith right beside them, wrangling her four-year-old daughter, Lilly. Tia Valentina, Uncle Jacob’s not really wife stood off to the side, fussing over Domenico as he lugged their supplies into the back of the truck.

 

“Wow,” Bridget remarked. “I didn’t know I was this popular!”

Rook snorted.

 

Joseph approached John. “Brother!” he greeted in his forehead touching ritual. “How time flies..” he muttered, with a far-away look in his eyes. Hannah pursed her lips but said nothing to her estranged father.

 

Domenico grabbed something from the back-seat. “Put this on,” he told Bridget, tossing her a bulky, grey, item.

 

Yup, that was a bulletproof vest, alright.

 

“No time to waste,” Domenico declared, getting in the driver’s seat.

 

“Um, no, no, no, no, who said you were going to drive?” Hannah retorted. “Go to the back, cabron.”

 

Domenico’s screech of protest was the only answer she got back.

 

“I’ll drive!” Max answered gleefully.

 

“No, Max!” was everyone’s collective answer. Max pouted.

 

“Yeah!” Lilly, Faith’s youngest daughter yelled. “Then while Max dwifes, I set things on FIRE!”

 

Faith sighed tiredly. “ _No, baby, you cannot set things on fire._ ”

 

Lilly pouted. “But daddy sets things on FIRE!”

 

Jacob snorted at his adoptive sister. “‘What you get for having kids with Boshaw, of all people.” Faith pointedly stared at him.

 

“We’re here, we’re here!” Sharky’s voice ran out, running towards them, with Freddie, their eldest in tow.

 

“Daddy!” Lilly yelled gleefully as she leaped out of Faith’s arms and into his.

 

“Aw, shucks, look at y’all getting ready to fight and all!” Sharky remarked fondly as he cradled Lilly in his arms. “When y’all get there, make sure you fuck up some real good Peggie ass, okay?”

 

Faith sighed exasperatedly. “Charlemagne, please watch your mouth around the children, _at all times_.”

 

“Right, right, sorry!” Sharky said meekly. “I mean when you get up there make sure y’all kick some good Peggie-” The Deputy interrupted her bestest friend by smacking him across the back.

 

“Ow, Po-Po, Faith’s done enough damage there last night!”

 

“Oh my God,” Faith groaned, her face red and in her hand, as Jacob barked in laughter and Rook shook her head in disbelief.

 

“As enlightening adult conversations are,” Camila said wryly. “We really need to get going, chicas.”

 

As Bridget made a move to get in the car, her father pulled her aside.

 

“Remember what we talked about, okay, Bridget?” her father’s eyes pleaded with her.

 

“I will, daddy, I promise,” Bridget said and her mother pulled her face to her.

 

“You’ll do great out there, baby. You’re strong and capable and so many things…” Bridget hugged her mom in return. She turned to Max.

 

“They make it sound like you’re going to go away forever, which I don’t mind,” he told her matter of factly. Little brat had to hug her anyway. “Just don’t mess the mission up, Bridget!” she smacked him again.

 

“Alright let’s go!” Hannah called out. Her father tried to reach out for her, but she quickly ran to the driver’s seat and took her place, ignoring the look of hurt that flashed through her father’s eyes.

 

Domenico tore himself away from his mother who was gripping his cheek tightly. “You take care of your _prima, si_ ?” Her latina mother’s look bore into his soul and feared the consequence of the mighty _chancla_.

 

“ _Si, mama.”_ He nodded to her and pushed Camila into their mother’s arms.

 

“Yes, mama, I’ll take care of them,” she yelped as Valentina squeezed her cheeks.

 

Domenic turned to look at his father. Jacob had never really been there much as a child for them, but Camila had never questioned it so he hadn’t either, but he was quite grateful for the man’s presence now, even if he went through a little bit of a daddy issues phase in his teens because of it.

 

Honestly, anything but a relationship like Hannah and her father’s was good for him.

Jacob patted his head as he would to a dog. “You’ll do good, pup,” he said plainly, despite Domenico already being thirty. Jacob Seed was never much a man of spoken emotion and while Domenico understood it, Camila didn’t.

 

“Tell me you love me, Papa,” she demanded from him. Jacob grunted in response but Camila grinned at him anyway and even had the nerve to steal a kiss from his scarred cheeks.

 

“Alright, bye parents!” she singsonged as she got into the front seat.

 

“I don’t even have front seat privileges?” Domenico retorted and Bridget laughed as she got in the backseat with him. She waved her family goodbye and frankly, if she was going to be as dramatic as her dad about it,  her childhood as well. This was going to be a new chapter of her life and she’d be lying if she wasn’t excited as hell. She bounced on her seat giddily.

 

“Alright, chicas, _vamonos!_ ”

 

And with that, the Seed cousins set off on their escapade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first chapter up, so proud of myself. now i just gotta motivate myself to finish this story:)


	2. Chapter 2

John watched as the car that held his daughter zoom past by them as he held his wife and son in his hands.

“They grew up real fast, huh, Johnny?” Rook muttered from beside him. “It was just like yesterday they landed in the middle of a war zone, messing everything up for us.”

He turned to kiss her cheek. “They’ll be seeing us soon enough, my dear,”

From his position beside Joseph he could see all too well the morose expression on his brother’s face, his yellow aviators missing and he finally had the decency to put a shirt on.

“Brother?” John inquired. He knew from some 17 years ago, the harsh feelings of bitterness that Hannah had imposed upon her father. She wasn’t at fault, of course, her father _had_ tried to kill her. John may have been a sadistic man, but even infanticide was something he was above of.

“And the lamb came, and with them, came bitterness and anger and pain…” Joseph stared at the back of the car solemnly, as if hoping it would turn around. “I can only hope my daughter has it in her to forgive me of the sins I have committed upon her.”

And with that, Joseph turned and headed back for his place, leaving behind a feeling of unsettlement.

Max and Freddie turned to look at their uncle confusingly. The former turned to look at his mother curiously as if asking _'_ _what?’_ , but Rook shook her head no.

 _Not now,_ she mouthed back.

“Well,” Jacob broke the melancholy silence. “Let’s hope they don’t mess us up too much, hm?” Beside him, Valentina patted his chest reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” she said to him in her slight Colombian accent. “The children will be fine. If anything we should be worried about those cultists of yours. They have a storm coming ahead of them.”

“Indeed,” Faith agreed.

“Yeah, look at my cherries gettin’ ready to kick some Peggie ass _!_ ” Sharky whooped.

 _“Sharky!”_ everyone yelled in unison.

…

The car ride was unsurprisingly not quiet considering the three Hispanic people it held.

 _“Dame mas gasolina, como le encanta la gasolina,”_ Camila sang atrociously with the music in the car, even though her voice sounded like it was being grated.

Domenico groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Switch that stupid song!”

Camila turned violently towards her brother. _“Que pasa, pendejo? Decir eso de nuevo? Ha?”_ she challenged. She unbuttoned her seatbelt and prepared to climb over to the back seat.

Domenico screeched and Hannah pushed Camila back down. “ _Jesus Cristo, sientate, puta!_ You’re acting like a fucking mongrel!”

Bridget stared at them wide-eyed, a sceptical look on her face as she watched the trio acting so unprofessionally. “Are Y'all always like this?” she asked Hannah warily.

Her cousin looked at her through the rearview mirror. “They are,” she said, referring to the two siblings.

“Oh, please,” Domenico wheezed from beside Bridget. “You started a fight with Camila once for changing your song,”

“It was Lana and The Weeknd!” she defended herself. Camila made a _pfft_ sound.

“Anyway, we are not always like this,” Domenico reassured her. “We are perfectly capable people capable of being mature, right?” he asked loudly.

“Look who’s talking,” Camila scoffed at her brother.

And so, another round of fighting began.

Bridget tried to ignore the sound of spitfire Spanish being thrown across the car and focused her thoughts on the surroundings outside. All across the ground, vibrant green grass grew, intermingled with the super bloom that had dominated the county after the bombs had dropped. They were shockingly pink and saturated with colour, nothing like what one would expect a post-apocalyptic flora would be. It should be dreary and depressing with death and destruction all around, not this…

Bridget wondered what life before the bombs were like. Was it even more beautiful and lush before the bombs? Did the animals not look like they came straight out of a fantasy novel? And what was their family like, before the Collapse had come and ruined the world as everyone back then had known it?

“Camila,” she asked tentatively, her eyes glued to the old, dirt roads before her ocean eyes.

 _“Si, bebe?”_ her eldest cousin replied.

“What was life like, before the bombs?” she asked.

Silence rang out like waves in the car. Instantly, she heard Camila sigh sadly. Domenico's eyes gained a nostalgic glaze to them, and even Hannah behind the driver’s seat, her hands tensed ever so slightly.

“It was…” Camila started, her body slightly turned to the back seat.

“Wonderfully mundane,” Domenico finished. He looked at her with his coffee brown eyes, filled with something like blissful bitterness.

“You know, back then, Camila, Hannah and I would travel to Colombia often. We would visit our Abuelo’s house,”

From where Bridget could see Hannah’s eyes in the rearview mirror, there was a nostalgic smile and expression on her pretty face. “Colombia,” she said. “Your home,”

 _“Si,”_ Domenico replied. “He had this huge ass garden and we would just run around all the time, ‘cause he had these really mean chickens. And we would go downtown in the city and we would just walk and eat with no hurry in mind. It was wonderful and colourful and so much fun every time.”

“Except for that one time I almost got kidnapped,” Hannah continued after a moment of blissful silence.

“What?” Bridget baulked.

“Oh yeahhhhhh,” Camila chuckled. “Wasn’t it some Los Pepes offshoot looking hoodlums ‘tryna sneak in my playground?”

“Tell me,” Bridget demanded. After nearly half an hour of pointless arguing, terrible singing and daydreaming, Bridget was hungry for some NC-17 stories.

“See…” Camila started but her voice faded away at the sight in front of them.

There, about five hundred meters forward stood a standing, and presumably working signal tower with an odd, almost shed/house-looking structure by its side.

And it was absolutely crawling with those goddamned highwaymen.

Even from where their car was idling, Bridget could see tiny little figures of black-clothed people, lumbering around and she could see the glimmer of guns.

She swallowed dryly.

“Stop the car,” Camila ordered and Hannah did as she said, slowly manoeuvring the car to park at the cluster of closely huddled trees and lush tall grass that had grown uncontrollably during the last seventeen years. It gave the car the perfect spot to be concealed away from the dirt road.

As a matter of fact, it was almost too perfect.

Bridget should’ve known that something was wrong at that moment.

As she and her cousins stepped out of the car, Bridget fought to steel her nerves. Her hands felt jittery and her heart was pounding violently against her chest.

“There’s so many of them,” Domenico said warily. “Especially for not having Mickey and Lou with them.”

Mickey and Lou were the two leaders of the highwaymen that had been ravaging the county ever since the destruction had given way to new life. All across the county, they’ve been stealing land and pillaging and killing and taking whatever they wanted and leaving virtually nothing behind, even life.

“I thought this was a mission to look for land, not fight the enemy,” Bridget said nervously.

“The land is the enemy,” Hannah retorted, quickly, but silently loading her M60. She had a holster on her hip, holding her prized Skorpion, with ammo draped all over her body.

Domenico was doing the same, being careful to stay out of sight, loading his guns and making sure he looked like an all-around badass agent, but Camila was frowning. Bridget fiddle with her bulletproof vest.

“I don’t know about this,” she whimpered pathetically to Domenico. He turned to her and pulled her into a hug. Then, he handed her a gun, the one she used to train with at home, with its medium length barrel and long handle- an MP5, by the looks of it.

Bridget took the gun wordlessly but cast a worried glance at Domenico.

“You can shoot a gun. You can fly a plane.” he gripped her shoulders tight. “This wasn’t supposed be like this, but we’re not the masters of the land,” he glanced at Hannah and Camila. “Stick with me; you won’t be shooting anybody unless absolutely needed. We’ll be going around them and we’ll be staying out of sight. Then we’ll go far, far away, call for reinforcements and if you want to go home, go.”

He looked at her deep in the eyes and shook her gently. “Don’t force yourself to, if you can’t Bridget. There’s no shame in backing away from what you can’t handle.”

Hannah nodded at her proudly but Camila shook her head. “This was supposed to be a scouting mission; we can’t risk Bridget getting hurt,” she protested. 

“Camila,” Bridget said, her throat dry; the words that she uttered, she wasn’t even sure if they were her own. She said them, but Bridget didn’t know whether or not her heart was in it. Just an hour ago, she was bouncing her butt off for the chance to be part of the team, but now… Bridget was hesitant to even continue the train of thought.

_Even if you think we’re not there for you, we will be okay? Don’t you ever forget that,_ her father’s voice echoed in her head.

She took a deep, rattling breath. How she wished on insisting to take Carmina along with them.

“I can do this,” she pleaded with Camila. “Let me prove-”

“This is not about proving anything, Bridget!” Camila interrupted her. “This is about war and when war comes, you will be doing things you don’t want to, at the expense of your morals. You will hurt people; Look me in the eyes again and tell me you want this.”

So Bridget looked Camila in the eyes and said: “I can do this.”, Her heart was for sure thumping violently now, and her vision blurred for what felt like hours. Was she really ready, though? Ready for the potential violence, the potential gunfight and the potential hurt she would inflict on other people? Bridget didn't want that, not at all. Her hands were clammy with sweat and her feet felt like they were going to cave in. 

Bridget took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and then opened them again. She knew what she needed to do what needed to be done.

Camila looked at her for a second, and then two and then three. Finally, she nodded and turned around, lugging her weapon and her cousins behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two, hohoho, I am so damn excited! I honestly haven't tried to write anything in like, two years, so forgive me if some sentences comes off in a way that's had to understand; i'm slowly getting back into writing and bruh, the hardships that come when I have the situation playing out in my head and I have the perfect words to describe but when i type it down, I JUST COMPLETELY FRICKING FORGET IT THEN I HAVE TO GOOGLE AND ITS- uh it's just so damn hard *ugly sobbing*. anyways, happy reading!


	3. Chapter 3

The closer they got to the building, the more foolishly courageous Bridget got. They were split into teams of two, with her and Domenico and Camila and Hannah joined together. The latter two circled the structure more closely considering they had more experience. She and Domenico, on the other hand, stayed farther away, hiding by the bushes and being cautious as to not be seen.

From where she could see, Bridget could spot at least twenty of the highwaymen, five in each corner of the building. They had their guns with them, some even with baseball bats as weapons. This was not Bridget signed up for.

"Shit," Domenico swore. "Why are there so fucking many of them?"

_Crack._

Bridget's eyes widened in fear as she looked at the broken stick underneath her feet. Domenico looked behind her and slowly moved his head down at the intruder of silence.

_"What was that?"_

Domenico and Bridget's eyes surged forward at the highwaymen in front of them. They were slowly getting closer to Bridget, who was frozen with fear. The highwaymen's gun was trained at the bushes in front of them, where Bridget was crouching, her gun held tightly but uselessly in front of her.

Domenico looked at her intently, his index finger was held to his lips and his eyes warning her not to make a noise. Bridget pursed her lips and stopped her breathing.

"Must be the wind," the highwayman said. He turned back around to go back but stopped.

Bridget's exhale of relief came out louder than she intended for it to, and unfortunately for her, the highwayman wanted to investigate it. This time he came even closer than before and before she could whimper in fear, Domenico distracted him by throwing a rock in front of him.

"Huh?" it asked; they spun around wildly, their guns trained on whatever it was in front of them. His group was doing their own thing, completely unaware of their isolated teammate. The highwayman inched slowly towards Domenico, stepping warily.

Swiftly and silently, Domenico struck; he grabbed the highwayman by the neck and drove his knife in their neck. Bridget stared in horror at the scene in front of her. Her cousin's effective strike had drawn barely any blood. The man went down without a fight, his life extinguished in a second. Domenico dragged its body farther before dropping it with a quiet thump.

Se looked up to Domenico's eyes slowly, then to the corpse, then back to Domenico again.

 _How?_ her eyes asked and Bridget swallowed dryly. Domenico avoided her gaze and moved on forward. "Let's go," he said gruffly. Bridget stilled for a second and bowed her head. Then she followed Domenico's footsteps.

...

Camila and Hannah, meanwhile, were hidden much more closely to the house than the other two were.

"The place is big, but there's five on each corner of the lot. That's a lot," Hannah pointed out.

"I know," Camila responded. She surveyed the area. Eliminating the enemies wouldn't be that difficult but they would have to pick them off one by one if they were to secure the area as quietly as possible.

"Lure one group far enough from the rest, then go for the kill. If we pick them off group by group, we'll be able to do it a little bit more efficiently. Domenico and Bridget will be laying low. And with a working signal tower, no doubt they're gonna have reinforcements nearby, just in case things go shittily."

Hannah nodded. "Split then, take the two on this side. If we have to, then we'll go over to the other side and take them two out, as well." She headed over to the huge signal disk and to a look at her targets. Hannah turned back to Camila and threw a thumbs up before heading forward to do her thing.

Camila stood up promptly and targeted her own men. Out of the five that she was to take on, two were patrolling by the bushes; something a throwing knife could take care off. While Hannah and Domenico carried their guns with them, Camila made with her bow; despite her loud personality, Camila preferred using bows during stealthy missions. Not to say she didn't carry guns though.

One by the back entrance, lazily swinging his gun around.  _Thwack._

Two by the side, straying away from the rest.  _Thwack._

Three and four by the bushes.  _Zwing_  went her throwing knives.

Five was nowhere to be seen. 

Camila prowled around the small area, careful not to be spotted. She spied Hannah, aiming her silenced weapon at the back of an enemy's head. Camila ignored the sound of the bullet hitting the skull.

She opened the back door quietly, checking her surroundings. Once she was sure, she was in the clear, Camila stood up. The inside of the house was a horrendous mess. It was musty and disgusting; the couch was torn, some of the fluff it was filled with was pouring out of the holes and it was a shade of greenish-grey it definitely wasn't supposed to be. The CRT television was broken, shards of glass littering the floor. The lamp was upturned and its shade had been eaten through by moths or god knows something else. It looked like a scene straight from a horror movie, warning her to get out before the monster showed up.

The rustling of footsteps downstairs was all she needed to know about number five.  _This is such a bad idea,_ Camila moaned in her head.  _Abandoned living room and disturbing noises downstairs, this is the dumbest thing I'll ever do-the half-white genes are really on to me, Jesus fucking Christ!_

Camila headed down the stairs, careful not to make any noise. It was creaky and it made so much noise, it was a god-honest miracle that number five didn't immediately come barreling down, guns blazing. 

The stairs came down to open space if one turned left. There were stacks of metal shelving with cardboard boxes most likely filled with little gimmicks. Dust and mould gathered on the floor and on the shelves.  _I'm gonna die in a basement,_ Camila thought drily. She approached the highwayman slowly, her knife in hand.

He was turned on his back, looking down on an old and browned piece of paper, reading it intently. His helmet was set off to the side, on the shelf, leaving his idiot head undefended.

Camila's aura must've been rolling off of her in waves of tsunami's because the highwayman whirled around. His eyes widened in fear and he dropped the paper he was holding. Camila felt some twisted satisfaction in knowing her face was the last thing he would see before he died.

She would've jammed her knife straight up his neck, if he hadn't moved back so quickly, so instead Camila stabbed his chest and abdomen. He gurgled in protest, blood immediately bubbling in his mouth. She then promptly stabbed him in the neck, if only to spare him and her clothes from suffering.

She looked down at the splotches of blood on her sleeved henley. "Eugh," she groaned. She glanced at the offending dead body. "Now I have to do my laundry early!" she whined.

Camila's curiosity got the better of her, though and she picked up the bloodied from the floor.

_Fix the machine, calibrate to right-_

_Do not die!_

That was all the note said before it became practically illegible for anybody to read.

"But what's the machine though?" Camila asked herself out loud.

Bridget's scream of terror had answered the question she didn't really want to be answered.

Camila bolted up the stairs, the note forgotten on the ground. Her legs were pounding from the ache that she was starting to feel. "Shouldn't have brought Bridget at all!" she swore. The scouting mission gods were really not on her side today.

She reached the back entry and threw the door open, her eyes meticulously scanning the scene in front of her. Bridget was being dragged by a highwayman goonie and Domenico laid on the ground unmoving.

"No!" Camila screamed. Fear gripped her body tight. Domenico could not  _die._ Not like that.

She surged forward, drawing her bow and shooting the man who had Bridget, dead. Camila ran over to try and reach her brother, but there were more highwaymen coming onto the scene. She heard a gunshot to her right and she saw Hannah hiding behind the giant satellite dish, engaged in a gunfight. Camila could try and kill the enemies with her bow, but it simply wasn't made for close combat.

She spied one of the fallen men, his body oozing blood and his gun laying down beside him. She quickly ran towards him in an effort to not become a human target. She picked the gun up quickly, reloading it at god-level speed, then quickly fired rounds at the offenders, leaving them dropping like flies.

"Camila!" Bridget wailed. The younger girl ran over to Domenico, then violently shook him. "He's alive!" she yelled in relief.

"Bridget get back!" she screamed. There were five other goonies coming up at her and she quickly ducked behind the nearest wall of the house. 

Shots fired relentlessly as Hannah and Camila battled the highwaymen. Bridget had heeded her cousin's words, but not without protest. "But Domenico!" she cried out.

"Then use your fucking gun, goddamnit!" Camila roared back. Bridget pointed the gun at the offenders and slowly started walking back, all while shooting.

 _Bratatat!_ , went their guns. 

"Hanna, cover me!" Camila screamed at her cousin. She sprinted forwards, still shooting at the enemies. She reached Domenico and slapped him in the face. "Domenico!" Camila shrieked.  _"Levantate, vamos!"_  

When Domenico only groaned in protest, she draped her arms under his armpits and started dragging him back.  _"Shit, shit, shit,"_ she swore, struggling under Domenico's weight. The boy made an attempt to rise, but only managed to stagger out of the way. Bridget and Hannah were still shooting at the highwaymen relentlessly, bullets firing at each other. Camila's newfound gun was slung across her back, useless as she helped Domenico stagger away from the scene.

"Let's move!" Camila howled at the other two girls.

"Bridget!" Hannah called. The other girl was still dutifully firing at the highwaymen, not as accurately as Hannah, though.

They retreated slowly up north, far away from the scene, where a fenced area stood, surrounded by more signal towers. It provided ample protection, but kind of looked something like a cage to keep one in. The highwaymen were still following them, determined to eliminate the Seed kids, even when it was clear that the latter weren't going to give up a fight, though there was no way they were going to win this. There were only two left now, the other having had dropped dead on the journey.

But of course, as Murphy's Law states; "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

One of the highwaymen must've finally developed a brain because just as the quartet reached the fenced area, one of the highwaymen yelled, "Fire in the hole!"

Thank whatever god was out there, 'cause clearly, they highwayman had such  _shitty_ aim, that whatever explosive they had thrown had landed not at the quarter, but by one of the signal towers surrounding them instead.

"Fuck!" Camila yelled in fear because instead of the signal tower collapsing and giving them even more hell like Camila had expected it to, it had started to make a terrifying grumbling and moaning sound.

The earth started to rumble from beneath them and her brother clung to her tightly. "Camila," he rasped. There was a bleeding gash on his forehead, presumably where hed been hit by the butt of a gun.

From the signal towers shot out electric blue tendrils of-lightning? Electricity? Whatever it was, it had started connecting the signal towers together, and it had Camila scared shitless.

"What the fuck is this?" Hannah shrieked. "What the fucking fuck?"

This time, the blue tendrils really did surround them like a cage keeping them trapped. They were trapped, and scared and reality suddenly hit Bridget like a train. 

She really could die right here and right now.

Fat droplets of tears started pouring down her face. Bridget was never gonna see her mom again, with her big belly and loving smiles, or her dad with his warm hands and hugs whenever she wanted them, or even Max, with his antics annoying her every single damn day.  _She was never, ever going to see them again._

There were bullets to her front, fencing to her back and electricity all around her; there was nowhere to go but down.

Bridget never got to continue that thought though, because the last thing her senses felt was the violent rumbling of the ground beneath her and around her and the blinding blue light overtaking her sight and cooling vapour as her eyes slowly gave way to the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit!!!! This chapter took me a bit longer to finish because school. Exams are almost upon me and i have to say, i'm making no effort to study at all. All my focus is on this story and grades be damned if i lose interest in this story! See y'all later!


	4. Chapter 4

_"Oh John, bold and brave. He's finding us a family, he's teaching us the faith..."_

Camila's eyes fluttered open gently, her eyes percieving blurriness and the putrid stench of shit filling up her nose.

_"Oh, John, oh John! Keep us safe! He's gonna march us right through Eden's gate..."_

Camila closed her eyes at the song's stupid and catchy beat. She tried to lift her upper body up, but a sharp pain immediately shot through her back, rendering her immobile.

She seethed her mouth and she plumped her body back onto the ground, immediately crying out in pain as her sore back hit the ground with a thud. Stars blinded her vision as she just laid painfully, tears spilling onto her face.

The whole mission was a fucking flop. The four of them were only supposed to have been scouting for land, not going around and getting into gunfights and with an inexperienced seventeen-year-old, too. Then the stupid signal towers did some funky shit and now she was lying in the middle of  _fucking_ somewhere...

Camila's eyes shot open. Shit, her little brother got shot, and she remembered him bleeding on the fucking ground and-

He was right beside her, slumped on the ground, bleeding less profusely. She sighed in relief and turned her aching neck to the other side. Hannah laid, also unconscious, her gun laying limply in her hand. Ever so slowly, she manoeuvred her hand to push herself up gently. She breathed in deeply, the stench of manure filling her nose.

As far as she could see, green fields were spread all over the area, with dirt roads winding in between. It was somewhat lush, with the occasional sheds and a single car lining the side of the roads. Best of all, Camila could see none of the fuckheaded highwaymen at all; it would have been a welcoming sight if only Bridget was there.

"Oh, shit," Camila whispered. "Oh, fuckity, fucking shit!" She dragged her body over to Domenico, trying her best to ignore the pain. She shook him gently, but firmly rolling his body to face her. From what Camila could see, Domenico had been shot in his abdominal area, if the blood staining his shirt was any indicator. "Goddammit!" she wept.

She tore his vest open, and much to her relief, Domenico groaned in protest. His hand shot up and stopped hers. "Hurts," he said weakly. His eyes fluttered open and then closed again and he rolled his head to the side.

 _"No mueras encima de mi,"_ Camila grunted at him. Once the vest was off of him, she grabbed her knife and cut his shirt open. The wound didn't look as bad as she thought, but it was nasty, with some blood still slowly oozing out; Camila could see the bullet that shot him. She cut a strip of his shirt and pressed it against the wound. "Don't move," she warned her brother. "I'm gonna wake Hannah up, then  we're gonna take this bad boy out, and we'll patch you up with some moonshine or something." Domenico let out what sounded like a painful wheeze.

Camila crawled toward Hannah, who unlike her cousins, seem to be uninjured.

"Hannah, wake up!" she yelled. She shook the other girl awake, who slowly came to. "Bridget is missing!"

Hannah blearily opened her eyes. She took a slow look at her environment and then bolted up straight. "Holy shit, Bridget's gone!"

Hannah stood up abruptly and started heading away, but Camila slapped her leg. "You're not gonna find her like that, idiot! Just... just help me with Domenico first, then we'll find Bridget. It won't be too long, we'll just patch him and then, and then we're gonna find Bridget, ok?" she stammered.

The other girl slowly looked at Domenico before nodding. "Ok, but how would we know where Bridget is?" she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I don't know and that's a problem," Camila breathed in. "But for now, let's not let Domenico die," She lifted up the strip of his shirt and Domenico seethed in pain. " _Ok, ok, calmate. Vamos a Tomar la bala y curarte bien, si?"_

Camila turned to Hannah. "Go see if the car over there has any shit we can use then come straight back to me. You have your walkie-talkie?"

Hannah fumbled around her thighs before taking the communication device out. "Yeah," she turned away towards the car, hoping for the best.

What could've gone wrong, did go wrong.

Bridget was somewhere, but they didn't know where. Okay, so that was one problem. Where could she be? 

Problem number two, Domenic was gonna fucking die if Hannah didn't hurry her ass up. She quickly ran across the road and reached the car.

It looked like it was broken down, and it was rusted on the sides, with the Peggie logo on the hood peeling off. It looked miserable, sitting on the side of the road. Hannah tried the logic of opening the door, but obviously, it was locked. So she broke the window, like any normal person, and unlocked it from the inside.

The car's odour was ranky, and musty in the summer heat. The glovebox, thank fucking god, had exactly what Hannah needed, the sight of the white and red box was a godsend.

"Yes!" Hannah whispered. She peeked inside and saw some basic first aid stuff; gauze, sterile wipes, gloves bandaids, safety pins and a roll of medical tape. Good enough to patch a wounded man.

The roar of engine passing by shook Hannah out of her stupor. It was a blue pickup, unmarked and blaring rock music. Hannah didn't get a good look at the driver, but she tried waving by for help, even if had it already passed her. Unfortunately for her, the car drove by too fast and Hannah was on the other side of the car, facing away from the road.

"Hey! Hey!" Hannah screamed. She waved her arms as the car became smaller and smaller as it drove farther away in the distance.

It was then that Hannah encountered her third problem. The yellow-green pasture kept rolling, as far as Hannah could see and there was not a single super bloom in sight.

Not a single one.

Hannah felt chills shiver down her spine. Where were the super blooms? Hope County and the surrounding area were littered with super bloom. And if there weren't any here, then where in God's holy name could they be?

She took her walkie-talkie out. "Camila?" she tried trepidly.

The device crackled to life. "Did you find anything? Come back quickly, the bullet is still inside and I think his breathing is hurting him a lot. We're gonna-"

"Camila," Hannah interrupted.

"What?" Camila snapped.

"There are no super blooms anywhere."

A pause, probably the realization that something was very, very wrong.

"Come back. Now."

...

The seemingly never-ending grasslands were starting to bore Rook crazy out of her mind. The radio was blaring something other than the stupid Peggie music and her good boy Boomer was sitting in the front seat, head stuck out of the window with his tail wagging enthusiastically.

She had been travelling all over the county for what seemed like an eternity, now, liberating the civilians from the damned cult. Sitting in the driver's seat in relative quietness, Rook could feel the toll of being a "saviour" start to take its effects.

Of course, the silence wouldn't last long. John Seed just never knew when to shut up.

"Oh, Deputeeeee!" came his stupid (sexy, but Rook would never admit that out loud) voice.

Boomer started barking at her radio crazily and Rook sighed in irritation. "Johnny, always a pleasure to hear your voice," she drawled sarcastically.

"Now is that any way to greet your lover?" came the staticky voice in reply.

Rook snorted in response. "We're not lovers, John," she said, but the memories of warm, soft beds, raking of fingernails and Seed blue eyes betrayed her thoughts.

"So our little secret rendezvous mean nothing to you, then?" he sighed dramatically. "I'm hurt, Deputy; I really thought we had something going on here." Rook could hear the shuffling of feet through the radio.

"Maybe we would, if you and your brothers stopped fucking things up," Rook pointed out. In the distance, she could see the outline of a cherry red silo, marked with a gigantic white Peggie symbol.

"Like I fucked you?" John said cheekily. Rook slammed on the brakes suddenly and Boomer yipped loudly, almost flying through the windshield.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, baby!" Rook gasped and immediately took the dog into her arms and buried her face into his fur; her face was flushed and she could feel the heat just gobbling her up.

"Well, you should be," John huffed. "You hurt my heart, Deputy!"

"I was talking to the dog, not you, you ass!" Rook snapped.

"Oh," a pause and then an: "Excuse you, I am a  _great_ piece of ass!"

"John!" The man only laughed in response and Rook felt like laughing along with him. Like she could just pretend that John wasn't a psycho who really took tattoo artistry too far, and his siblings weren't fucking cult leaders going around forcing people to join them. She could just pretend that she and the man on the radio were just normal people bantering like all lovers did (if they even considered themselves so) and not who they were right now. "You're really fucking lewd, you know that?"

"Only adds to my charm, my dear,"

"Anybody could've been listening in!" Rook said indignantly. She was nearing the silo she was planning to raid.

"Well then they'll know that you're taken," His voice took a sombre and almost desperate tone. "Deputy, our offer still stands. Atone and my family will welcome you with open arms."

Rook's mood was crushed in an instant. John really brought up the topic, again.

"We've already talked about this, John, " she said coldly and firmly. "That's not how things work around here."

She could feel John's anger spike through the radio. "There are people that are dying-"

"Because of you and your family!" Rook yelled.

"They need to be saved!"

"Well, maybe they don't want to be saved!" Rook was so tired of this conversation. Every single time they argued, it was always about this. Rook knew her dalliance with the youngest Seed brother could put the Resistance at risk. It wasn't safe, for either of them, but it happened anyway, and now they were here. Again.

"Deputy," he growled, but Rook shook he head. Boomer was sitting uncharacteristically silent as if to let his human have the time to talk to her not lover without his barking interruptions; his head was tilted and his tongue was lolled.

"No," Rook said for the final time, before cutting off the radio, gathering her equipment and heading for the farm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exam reviews. exams. school. life.


	5. Chapter 5

The ground wasn't as luscious as it was at home, but Bridget found that there was a certain charm that it held to it. The pond that she was sitting in front was partly hidden, so it was a little quieter and more secluded. No doubt, there would be a stock of radioactive rock-covered fish swimming inside, waiting to snap her up.

Bridget had been the first to wake up, out of all her cousins and the first thing she'd notice was the lack of the vibrant super bloom. The little flowers were a trademark of post-apocalyptic Hope County, so if they weren't here, then where could they possibly be?

She had tried waking up the rest of her cousins, but none of them would budge awake and she was scared that if she even laid a pinky on Domenico he would die from his injuries, so she was left to meander around on her own. They were situated on a somewhat forested area, not too many trees, but not too little either that they were left exposed. There had been a car in front of her, which Bridget tried to drive (Hannah had taught her how to jump-start a car and drive when she was fourteen) but it looked like it was broken down (what the hell did she know about cars?) and her addled brain didn't think of searching it for supplies, so she walked farther away from the area they had landed in.

Which is how she was now sitting in front of the pond,  _pondering_ what the fuck had just happened to her.

First, it had been a simple enough scouting mission, which somehow escalated into a gunfight for her life, and now she was wherever  _here_ was. Just peachy keen.

She still had her radio-walkie-talkie thing on her hip, which, fortunately for her, just happened to crackle to life.

"Bridget? Bridget, are you there? Over." came Hannah's voice through the device.

She picked up her radio and responded, "Hannah! Are you guys ok?"

Bridget waited for a response but heard nothing. Inwardly, she panicked. "Hannah?"

 _"Bridget, you have to say 'over',"_ the other girl responded.

"Why?" Bridget retorted.

 _"So I know you're not dead!"_ Hannah insisted.

"Takes too long," Bridget complained.

_"I'd rather it take too long than see if you're dead!"_

"Well I'm alive, so..."

_"Bridget, seriously?"_

"As serious as Uncle Jacob," Bridget responded seriously. "How's Domenico?"

 _"Well, he's not dead either, if that's what you wanted to know,"_ Hannah sniffed.  _"Where the hell are you?"_

"I'm up just a little bit ahead of you," Bridget turned around from her spot just in time to catch a blue car zoom past her.

Bridget froze. 

 _"Bridget?"_ the line asked tentatively.

"A blue car just passed by me," she said. She stood up and gathered her gun.

 _"Unmarked?"_ Bridget could just imagine Hannah's ears perking up.

"Yeah," Bridget's eyes trailed the car, which ended up slowing down just a couple of hundred yards off of the farm that stood not too far from Bridget. Maybe about three superbow stadiums away from her? She was hesitant to even approach the farm because of  _what-if?_ her brain thought. She would take her chances with the unmarked car.

"I'm about a mile away from where you are," she said steely. "Took me about twenty minutes. There's gonna be a farm, not too beyond that point."

Hannah sensed the change in her tone immediately.  _"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?"_ she asked urgently.

"I'm gonna follow the car and see if we can get help." 

 _"Bridget, no!"_ Hannah said desperately, but she had already turned her radio off and headed towards the farm.

...

  _"Fuck!"_ Hannah exclaimed and kicked the ground beneath her.

"How are we gonna get there?" Camila asked desperately. "A mile could be in any direction!"

Domenico groaned and tried to sit up and Camila immediately helped him up.

"We got the bullet out, brother, how are we doing?" Domenico was heaving and his eyes were shot.

"I'm great," he wheezed. "Help me up," He tried to steadily stand on his feet, but would have crashed his face onto the ground if Hannah and Camila didn't hold him up by the arms.

"Slow down, Dom!" Hannah chastised. "Bridget said that she saw the car that passed by us. It was heading over that direction," she pointed west from the field that they were facing, behind the car.

"Which means west from where we're standing, or north if we face west," Camila heaved, supporting Domenico's weight as they went slightly downhill. "You're really fat, eh, Domenico?"

"Shut up," the boy responded. "You can let go of me if you think I'm too thick for your ass. Besides I can walk by myself,"

"I think the fuck not," Camila remarked. Domenico grunted in response.

"I'm only slowing you down," he argued weakly. "You and Hannah can go on ahead and look for Bridget and I'll be in the car just casually dying."

"And leave you out here with no company?" Hannah retorted.

"I got  _Dios_ for company," Domenico sassed back.

"And then soon enough he'll be your caretaker in whatever circle of hell you end up in," Hannah snapped back.

"Why would God be my caretaker if I land in hell?" Domenico guffawed.

Just as the two were seriously getting in on their useless argument, Camila interfered.

"Shut up!" she silenced them. "Bridget said the car passed by her and it headed up north from where we are right now. That thing must've been going over the limit like crazy. If we have any chance of catching up, it's going to be with that car."

Ah, yes. The car that looked completely and utterly and pathetically broken down.

"You really wanna chance on that even turning on?" Hannah's eyebrow scrunched in doubt.

"You got a better idea?" Camila snapped.

"Ok, bitch, chill," The other girl held her hands up in defence. "You're driving that thing, though."

"Fine," Camila huffed. She got on to the driver's seat and grimaced at the smell. "It smells like shit in here!"

The seat was scratched up and the interior was an even uglier sight to behold. The wheel looked suspicious and Camila really didn't wanna possibly die from attempting to jumpstart a possibly broken down car, if that was even possible. "And the window's broken!" she complained.

"How'd you think I got the first aid in the first place?" Hannah shrilled.

"That's a safety hazard!"

"Everything around us is a safety hazard!"

"Just fucking drive!" Domenico screamed.

"I think the battery's dead!" Camila yelled

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he roared.

"Check the back for batteries and pliers," Camila ordered, as she got out of the car and headed to the hood. 

Boy, if Camila thought the car's interior was ugly, then she was proved wrong. The car hood was just absolutely battered; the wires looked like it had been eaten through by something and the battery looked like it had corroded. "Holy fucking shit, we're gonna die if we drive this car!"

Camila let the hood slam back down and lowered her head in defeat, but not for long though. The roaring of another car's engine once again interrupted their health.

It was another Peggie truck, carelessly pulling to a stop in the middle of the road. Three passengers, all with unkempt hair and potato sacks for clothing and holding guns, got out of the truck and Camila hollered out "Hey!"

Of course, that was when things went to shit,  _again._

"Camila, down!" Hannah warned as she dove to the other side of the car, at the same time as one of the Peggies screamed: "Sinner!"

"What the fuck, Richard!" Camila dove down on the ground as the gunshots rang out all around them. She and Hannah were hiding behind the car as the Peggies shot at them continuously.

"Again?" Domenico groaned from inside the car.

"Our guns are in the front seat," Camila whispered. "I'll grab 'em and you take flank, while I shoot from the driver's seat," She climbed inside the car, paying close attention as to not get scratched up from the pieces of shattered glass that the Peggies had just shot at.

"I thought we had a truce between Eden's Gate and the civilian-resistance!" Domenico yelped, taking cover from the bottom. He grunted as landed, taking special care so he didn't have to further aggravate his wound.

"I don't know!" Camila panicked as she grabbed both her and Hannah's guns.

She tossed Hannah her M-60 and took her spot at the front. The three Peggies were all shooting at them and one even said: "You're all going to die!"

"We all die, you either kill yourself or get killed!" Hannah shot back literally and one of the Peggies fell down dead, which left two more.

"The Father is going to usher in a new world and ain't none of y'all sinners gonna be there to live in it!"

Hannah's eyes darkened and Camila took the chance to shoot the one Peggie behind the talkative one.

"I live in the New World and it's shittier than your shit," she said darkly as she ended his life with her bullet. The Peggie fell lifelessly onto the ground, his eyes clouded with death.

Camila took a deep breath and looked at the scene in front of her. All three of the Peggies were gone, leaving behind the car that they were just riding in. The car that they were in themselves would no doubt be useless now, from all the gunshots it had suffered. The other car, on the other hand, was in ideal enough condition to drive over the speed limit.

With the wild Peggies finally dispatched, the two cousins made a quick move to help Domenico out of the car and into the new one that their enemies had left behind. None of them had the time to survey the car, but it would work for them. It would be working and in good condition and it would get them to Bridget fast.

"Just drive before Bridget gets her killed," Domenico said. His wound's condition really hadn't improved at all since they had just been shot at again, but he said it didn't hurt as much anymore, so...

As Camila got the car all revved up, Hannah relayed the exact thoughts on the former's mind.

"What'd he mean when he said 'The Father would usher in a New World'?" she said distractedly. "The bombs dropped seventeen years ago, it's not possible for the New World to be a 'would' when half of America's population has been wiped out!"

"I don't know, Hannah," Camila said tiredly as she stepped on the gas and flew through the dirt roads, passing by the pasture and slowly approaching where Bridget said she would be. "I don't know." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying my best to not drown in exam reviews. so how's y'all's life been going? about to start sem 2 and my timetables are stressing me the fuque out


	6. Chapter 6

"Can you drive any faster?" Domenico groaned from the back. His gunshot wound was now only barely bleeding and he felt good enough to sit on his own. Camila's own neck and backache felt like it had faded away years ago.

Camila shot her brother a dirty look from the rearview mirror. "Shut up and see if you can drive."

For sure, they were going over whatever speed limit Hope County had set for its drivers, but that didn't matter to any of the three passengers. As long as they got to Bridget before shit went over the atmosphere then that was fine.

The pure pastures had faded into less and they could see the outline of the farm coming into the horizon. The hunking, silver silo stood menacingly upright, filled with explosive fertilizer that totally didn't have the capacity to kill anyone within the vicinity.

Hannah grabbed her walkie-talkie and spoke. "Jet?" she asked. "Jet, are you there? Over."

The device crackled to life.  _"I'm here,"_ Bridget responded.  _"And seriously, stop it with the 'over', it's pointless."_

"We're close to the farm, where are you at?" Camila said. Their destination was nearing and there was no sign of Bridget from their direction.

_"I've circled the farm,"_ Bridget reasoned.  _"Are you gonna get me?"_

"If we can even find where you are," Hannah supplied. "Where on the farm?"

"On top of the silo," 

Camila nearly rashed the car. "The fuck?"

"I'm scoping," Bridget reasoned. "I can see more from up top, figure out where we are,"

"How'd you even get up there?" Hannah asked incredulously, frantically trying to spot her baby cousin on top of the silo.

"The ladder, duh," Bridget said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Jet, please don't die," Domenico begged her.

"I won't---oh shit!" Bridget exclaimed from the other end of the line, sounding as if she were going to fall.

"Bridget!" the three cousins in the car yelled.

"HA!" the other girl laughed. "Gotty!"

"Fuck you!" Camila yelled. "And get down from there, now!"

"Yes, ma'am---oh..."

"What?"  Camila asked worriedly.

"I see those Peggies now," Bridget responded despondently. "There's two cars and they're heading straight for you!"

"Oh, fuck!" Camila cried out. "Stay there, do not fucking move!"

Camila flipped her radio off and told Hannah to shoot the Peggies before the Peggies shot them.

"There's two of them! Are you out of your fucking mind?" Hannah asked unbelievingly. 

"I'm gonna see if I can help," came Bridget's voice from the radio.

"NO!" all three cousin's voices chorused, but Bridget had her mother's stubbornness.

The moment the Peggie's car came into view, Camila, Hannah, and the Domenico all started shooting at them. The car behind managed to dodge all the shots, but the first one coming in was not so lucky. The driver' head became a target and its tires squealed and swerved as the bullet hit it.

"Shit!" they could hear the Peggie swear. "There are sinners here!"

The car behind pulled to a sudden stop at the farm and out came another three more.

"This is a lot harder than ambushing them!" Hannah yelled as the cousins and their father's henchmen exchanged bullets.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Domenico yelled, acting like he hadn't just been shot some hour and a half ago. His bandaged abdomen didn't look like it was seeping any more blood.

"I'm gonna take some shots, but I don't know if I can get close enough!" Bridget said from her device.

"Don't!" Domenico freaked. "I'm gonna get you out, just wait!"

"Domenico, no!" Camila screamed at him from her position. 5 against 3; luck really wasn't on their side today.

The man clearly ignored his sister as he crawled over to the other passenger door and lumbered out. His steps were heavy and uneven, but his baby cousin was his main priority.

He paused behind the car, as he waited for Hannah to cover him and once she finally got off from the car and started shooting again, he did his best to quickly limp over to the other side.

As much as it  _pained_ him to say it (what a pun, he would've thought, if they weren't in such dire consequences), Domenico's midsection was still throbbing and though the bullet did minimal damage, he still had a hole in him, which happened to make walking super hard.

"Bridget!" he called out. He searched desperately for any signs of his baby cousin and lo and behold, down she came sliding from the silo's ladders and went running to him.

Too bad the Peggies saw fit to ruin their reunion with his guns.

Bridget let out a scream as bullets hit the ground and air around her, completely forgetting about the gun she held in her hands.

Domenico tried to turn around to shoot at the offender, but the sudden twist of his abdomen made him fall double over with a cry of pain.

Before his life could be pathetically snuffed out, the Peggie's head was blasted and Domenico tried to not to wretch from the brains that sprayed all over him.

His head snapped over to his behind. First thinking it was Bridget, he turned to look at her, but then noticed a figure standing beside the girl herself, a gun in hand with an Aussie Cattle dog in tow. The figure was wearing a vest with flannels underneath, jeans and boots streaked with mud and what was most likely dried blood. From what Domenico could see, she had black hair and stood a few good inches taller than her daughter.

It was Rook.

But it also wasn't Rook, because clearly, she wasn't five-months pregnant, with her husband lumbering behind to fret over her like a mother hen.

What the fuck? Last Domenico remembered, his  _tia_ was with child, at the Prosperity camp, with the rest of the family to keep her company. 

There was no way anyone, even Rook herself, who would willingly put their (not) pregnant self into the midst of battle. So  _why,_ in God's holy name was she not pregnant and at the base camp?

And last he also remembered, Boomer had long since passed away. So why was the dog suddenly now alive, standing attentively at his mother's feet?

"Get 'em, Boomer!" Rook ordered her furry companion and at once the dog leapt into action. It bit the nearest Peggie's arm, chewing on it like it was a damn toy.

"Ah!" The Peggie flailed in terror, doing his best to shake off the determined canine. His partner aimed wildly at the dog, but his shots were even wilder. He (thankfully) couldn't even manage to hit the animal. 

Which, of course, brings Domenico and his merry gang to the rest of their predicament.

With Hannah and Camila occupied with the mounted gun and its three offenders, Domenico, Rook and Bridget were left to deal with the two lumbering oafs.

Unfortunately, the problem presented itself when Lumbering Oaf One managed to shake off Boomer and gave him a good kick to the ribs for sureness. Boomer whined but was slow to recover.

Just as Rook was a hairs length away from reaching him, Lumbering Oaf Two shot her in the leg.

She cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching at her thigh as blood oozed out of her wound.

"No!" Domenico yelled, at the same time as Bridget let out a gut-wrenching, "MOM!"

She surged forward, but Lumbering Oaf One snatched her up in his arms. "I got one!" he yelled in glee.

"Bridget, no!" Domenico panicked. He pulled himself up, casting a glance at his aunt before pursing his lips.

He shot at the attackers but much to his surprise, Lumbering Oaf Two pulled a grenade and threw it at his and Rook's general direction.

_BAM!_

His ears were defeaned as fire and smoke erupted around the both of them.

"Augh..." Domenico groaned as he collapsed to his knees once more. His mind was hazy and his head was pounding as his gun fell from his hands and onto the ground. 

He could hardly hear anything around him, but he could feel that there were hands grabbing him from under the underarms and dragging him away; he was too shaken up to fight back.

Domenico couldn't make any sense of the world around him as the Peggie maliciously whispered in his ear: "You're going to atone for that."

He couldn't hear how his sister and cousin screamed helplessly from their positions as he was loaded onto the truck, still being assaulted by the mounted gun on top of the truck.

He most definitely did not see the way Hannah still ran after the trucks as it drove away, or how Camila stopped her to go tend to Aunt Rook, who still lay helplessly on the ground with Boomer yapping at her feet, whining and nuzzling his human's face to bring her comfort.

The only coherent thought he could form, though, was  _what and_ _where_ _the fuck?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've noticed that i have a penchant for posting in the middle of the night


	7. Chapter 7

Watching her baby cousins get dragged away was a gut-wrenching sight. Seeing Domenico collapse was scary enough, but watching Bridget get dragged away kicking and screaming by maniacs, heartbreakingly crying out "Mom!" was even worse.

Hannah no doubt would've gone after them, but Camila pulled her head out of the water. 

Once the mounted gun on the truck had gotten far enough to stop firing and Hannah was sure she wouldn't get shot, she tried taking off, wildly aiming for the gunman, her feet pounding against the ground, blood and adrenaline rushing through her veins with only one thought on her mind.

_Run._

Her chafed boots only got to three steps before someone yanked her back violently.

"No!" Camila snarled. "I'm not losing you too!" She dragged Hannah back, restraining the other girl from running after death.

"Dom and Jet are in there!" the other girl snarled back.

"You're going to die if you go after them!"

"So are Bridget and Domenico!"

Before Camila could say something back, a soft, mournful whine interrupted from behind them.

Hannah and Camila's head snapped to the noise and Camila let out a gasp. _"_ _Dios mio..."_

There, on the ground, with Boomer frantically sniffing her body, was their dear deputy-aunt Rook.

She was bleeding from her leg profusely, dark red seeping through her jeans. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her mouth was set into an 'o', but no sound was coming out. Her left hand was gripping her wounded leg and her other hand was clutching her gun.

"Oh my God!" Camila gasped. She wasted no time bolting over to the deputy whilst Hannah dumbfounded.

Camila knelt down beside the deputy and attempted to ease Rook's pain but she only cried out. Immediately, Boomer started barking crazily at her. Camila held her hand out peacefully as if to say: 'I'm not going to hurt her,'.

"Hannah," she said. "The first aid kit, where is it?"

Hannah broke out of her stupor and realized the scene in front of her. "Oh my God!" she cried out. 

'The first aid kit, Hannah, where is it?"

Said girl frantically patted her pockets before realizing. "Don't have it, we probably used it all up treating Domenico!"

Camila swore as Hannah knelt down beside Rook. "Her wound is worse than Dom's too," She tore a piece of her own shirt and paused before wrapping it around their aunt's mangled thigh.

"Hold her down," Camila warned, as she squeezed and tied the strip of cloth above the wound. Hannah tried not to grimace as more blood oozed out and Rook screamed bloody murder.

Rook mumbled something under her breath.

"What?" Hannah breathed out.

"We need to take her back to base," Camila said as she let out a breath and made an attempt to stand up, but Rook pulled her quickly back down.

"Fall's End," she said, her voice laced with agony.

"What?" Hannah asked befuddled. "I thought Fall's End was obliterated..."

Camila stared at her wordlessly, wariness in her face. "Something's not right..." she whispered under her breath.

"Fall's End," Rook moaned in pain. "Mary May can help me,"

Both cousins stared at their deputy-aunt with disbelief written blatantly on their faces.

"Deputy, Fall's End is gone. It was wiped out by the bombs nearly seventeen years ago!" Hannah tried to convince her desperately.

"Fuck you!" Rook swore. "Take me to Fall's End now!" she demanded. She made a move to roll over, but Boomer's frantic barking and her inability to move without feeling like combusting from the inside out prevented her from doing so.

"She's bleeding out!" Camila's voice took a distressed tone. 

"We don't even know where we are!" Hannah screamed back.

"We're just south of Rae-Rae's farm..." Rook groaned. "Just follow the road down south then take a left and keep going... Spread Eagle Bar, that's where Mary May'll be..." With that, Rook's head slumped forward and her eyes slipped into the darkness.

"Shit, just do as the woman says!" With both Hanah and Camila (and Bomer's) combined efforts, they heaved the unconscious deputy and lugged her onto the back of the truck before madly dashing off to Fall's End.

...

 By the time Domenico had come to, the sun was already setting, fading into a brilliant purple and mellow yellow, with the dirt roads trailing in front of them. It was a scene straight from a postcard, like the ones you would find in gift shops, waiting to be picked up as a souvenir.

Domenico would've loved and appreciated it, if only he wasn't stuck in a cult truck, with his hands tied behind his back, and a pounding headache that made his eyes feel like melting to add to that. He craned his head away from the measly little window on the pickup's doors; there were three men, all in all, two up front and one sandwiched beside him and Bridget.

_Bridget._

The poor girl's face was stained with blood, tears and dirt and the cultist in between them has his hands buried in her hair, gripping it so tightly that there was no doubt that it hurt.

"Bridget," he whimpered. Her eyes snapped up to his and widened, whether it was in glee or surprise. His wound was no longer hurting too bad as it had before and only a dull throbbing ache was left behind.

"Dom!" she exclaimed but yelled in pain as the cultist yanked her hair back.

Domenico growled but the Peggie up front just shook his head and smiled evilly. He pointed his gun at Domenico. "Tsk, tsk," he said cruelly. "Don't want that now, do we, brother?"

The peggie in between Domenico and his cousin cackled. "Your girlie's a feisty one, eh? Tried to bite me, but we know what happens to bitches around here," Bridget snarled at the insult, but the Peggie only yanked her again. She stayed silent this time.

Domenico, if he was untied, would've beaten the cultist bloody, but as it stood as of now, he was bound.

This whole scouting mission had been a major fuck up and Domenico wanted to cry at the stupidity of it all. _If it hadn't been for the damned highwaymen, none of this would've happened at all,_ Domenico thought bitterly.

Now he and his cousins were separated, he was going to bleed out to death if he first didn't die from an infection and his inexperienced little cousin was now caught in the middle of all this madness and now her parents were going to absolutely annihilate him. John Seed was going to flay him alive and Rook--

Domenico's thoughts were interrupted rudely by the thought of the Deputy.

 _What the fuck?_ his mind tried to make sense of it all, but he just simply couldn't wrap his mind around the bizarreness of it all.

When Domenico had left Prosperity, the base camp, Rook had been five months pregnant, with many bets on her pregnancy being twins. She waddled around, doing post-apocalyptic stuff with her husband John, fretting over her like a mother hen, always by her side, making sure she wasn't doing anything 'strenuous' (as if their nightly activities weren't, Domenico snorted).

So how was it possible for Rook to be not waddling around five months pregnant?

Domenico tried his damndest to think back. Leaving Prosperity, scouting the house, getting in a gunfight with the highwaymen, retreating back to the signal towers...

 _The signal towers!_ his mind screamed at him. There was the gunfight, then one of the highwaymen threw the badly aimed explosive that was meant to hit them, but instead, it hit the signal tower. Then some fuckery which included blue electricity like from the Avatar show and then  _bam!_

Domenico felt a dark pit growing within him.

Something was very, very wrong and somehow, the signal towers were all involved in this.

They lived in the New World, where the Project at Eden's Gate and the Resistance did their best to live side by side together for the sake of a new dawn. So why now, were the cultists attacking them? A treaty had been signed by all the heralds and resistance leaders. It explicitly said that there was to be no violence enacted upon each other from either of the sides. 

It was the one law in the new world that all camps followed strictly to the bone.

Unless he, Camila, Hannah and Bridget had somewhat travelled to an alternate universe or time travelled, there was no possible way that their situation was just possible.

Unless of course, they actually had done either of the two.

Domenico's throat was dry and his voice was raspy as he asked one of the cultists: "What's the date today?"

The driver looked at him weirdly. "What?" he asked.

"The date," he stated pleadingly. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Bridget's questioning gaze.

"Now why would we tell you that?" the cultist responded.

"Knowing what time of the year we're in won't hurt," Domenico argued back.

The cultist's eyes narrowed suspiciously at him. A purse of his lips, and then he said: "May 24th,"

 _Okay,_ he thought.  _Same date,_

Domenico hesitated. "And the year?" he asked meekly.

The cultist driver's eyes narrowed even more. A moment of silence ensued and then he said:

"2018,"

_Holy fucking shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, first time not posting in the middle of the night. tbh, i'm kinda nervous now that new dawn's release date is coming nearer. who knows how canon will affect fanon?


	8. Chapter 8

2018.

Twenty fucking eighteen.

Domenico's throat dried and his eyes filled with tears. He could find nothing to say. He could hear Bridget's whimpers beside the cultist, but she too was speechless.

2018? How? His mind was running a mile a minute, but Domenico couldn't even come up with a coherent thought.

Silence had never been so loud before.

2018.

A time of chaos, war and destruction. The year of The Collapse.

Domenico almost shit himself, right then and there.

If they were in 2018, undoubtedly in Hope County in Montana, then they were smack in the middle of a civil war between the Project at Eden's Gate and the Resistance and a war that Bridget had never known; she hasn't even been born yet.

Which surely meant that his father, uncles and aunt were all still bat-shit crazy. They would still be leading the cult into what they thought was a New Eden, ignorant of the absolute hell that was the New Dawn. They would all be under the illusion that they were going to live in a paradise. They would all have cultist working for them, his father in particular with his mutant wolves. They would all still be  _bad people._

So they had time-travelled indeed.

And if they had time-travelled seventeen years into the past, it meant that they absolutely  _could not_ interfere with the way natural order worked and the events that should be happening under normal circumstances.

All of their actions had consequences and their choices and actions had the capability to greatly impact the future that had already and yet to happen.

Domenico's head was spinning as he took all the information in.

Suddenly, the realization of the absolute mess that they were in, the realization that he and his cousins were somewhere that they did not belong truly, truly terrified him.

Unbeknownst to him, tears started spilling onto his cheeks. His shoulders trembled with the heaviness of his fears.

They had been captured by cultists. Whose cultists, Domenico didn't know, but he would place a bet on them being John's.

Which was _so, so bad._

Domenico knew that before the Collapse, his uncle was renown for being a sadistic man with a temper quicker than Usain Bolt. He fucking tattooed people's sins on their bodies, dunked people underwater to baptize them, carved sins onto human flesh and nailed his offenders to humiliate them, even in death.

This man now was not the man that he would be and certainly not the father that Bridget had.

And if the cultist were John's, then they would be taken to him to be baptized into the faith, endure a one-on-one tatt session that involved a forced atonement, which involved much,  _much pain._

Which inadvertently meant that Bridget would meet the father that was not her dad, consequently fucking up the future that she would have  _because she wasn't even born yet._

Domenico's headache worsened.

"Dom?" Bridget quietly whispered. The Peggie beside her threw her a dirty look but did nothing.

Domenico was silent.

 _"Bridget,"_ he hurriedly said in his native tongue. _"Vamos a escapar. Y cuando escapemos, correrás muy lejos y no mirarás hacia atrás. No parará por nadie, no hablará con nadie, especialmente si los conoce. Entiendes?"_

Beside him, Bridget's eyes widened. When she had been born, he and his cousins had taken to radioing John and Rook in their bunker. Since the moment she had started to talk, they had been doing their very best to teach her Spanish.  They held weekly lessons in Spanish, which slowly grew into lessons every three days, as to not burn their radio out. Bridget had learned to understand Spanish, but never fully grasped how to speak it.

"Hey, hey, hey," the cultist warned, at the same time as Domenico counted down.

_"Tres, dos, uno,"_

At once, Domenico turned to the cultist beside him and headbutted him violently. Bridget pushed his head and slammed it into the window, effectively breaking it. The Peggie in the shotgun growled in anger. "What the--"

He never got the chance to finish his sentence though, because Domenico had moved to the middle of the back seat, leaned back, raised his feet and kicked at the wheel.

All at once, the car had lurched into a swerve; it the sudden movement had caused it to flip over violently.

Once, and then twice.

A ringing sound dominated Domenico's hearing. The windows on the car were broken and it left a hole big enough for Briget to crawl through and run away.

Vaguely, he could hear himself frantically telling Bridget to run--run and don't look back.

Knowing now that they were 17 years in the past, Bridget or any of them- him, Camila and Hannah--absolutely could not interfere with  _anything_. Especially with her father and his path.

"Domenico!" he heard her cry out in the chaos.

"Just run!" Domenico didn't know whether or not the Peggies they were with were still alive or not but he would take his chances. Groaning, he crawled his way out of the windowless window. Searing pain shot up his side as his wound reopened again. It felt like a thousand sewing needles poking him over and over again, at different intervals. It was hell.

Domenico grunted but he willed himself to keep going. There was absolutely no way he was going to die in 2018,  _seventeen fucking years in the past._ It was pathetic and he would never hear the end of it from God.

Gingerly, he stood up and almost got to take his first step towards freedom when someone kicked him back down.

"Oof," he gasped in pain. His breath quickened and there was a pounding reverberating throughout his head.

"I found on them!" he heard a Peggie say. "Fucking son of a bitch," he heard them swear. Oh if only his mother could've heard that; Valentina Velasquez would've fought them in heels and come out the winner for sure. Domenico wished his mother was here with him.

"I can't find the other one!" the other Peggie said. Just his luck, neither of the cultists in the front seat, but relief flooded his system at hearing that Bridget had escaped.

 _At least she' safe,_ he thought.

Hands gripped his hair and violently yanked his head up to face the eyes of his cultist. Cold and cruel eyes, stared back at him. It was filled with hate and if his hands weren't tied behind his back, Domenico would've gouged the Peggie's eyes out. Fear overtook him and a dark pit grew in his stomach. Domenico felt like throwing up and curling up into a ball and bawling his eyes out.

He was so close, yet he still failed.

His senses, one by one dimmed until the last thing he saw was the butt of a shotgun heading straight for his face and then Domenico just... let go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's kinda short, but im throwing them all out since i wanna get a good base established before new dawn comes out. also:
> 
> "Vamos a escapar. Y cuando escapemos, correrás muy lejos y no mirarás hacia atrás. No parará por nadie, no hablará con nadie, especialmente si los conoce. Entiendes?" - We are going to escape. And when we escape, you will run far, far away and you will not look back. You will not stop for anybody, you will not speak to anybody, especially if you know them. Do you understand?
> 
> once again, a reminder that this is google translate Spanish. no doubt this is not accurate so feel free to correct me!


	9. Chapter 9

Boomer's frantic barking and Hannah's nutjob driving at light-breaking speed was really starting to get on Camila's nerves. The former's driving skills were more than terrible, but Camila cut her some slack.

Their aunt was bleeding to death in the backseat after all.

With much reluctance from the two girls, they were now zooming past fields of corn and off to Fall's End where Rook insisted she be taken to. Her bleeding leg wasn't bleeding as much, though, courtesy of the makeshift tourniquet that Camila, who was sitting beside the deputy, had made. She was the one who was more knowledgeable about safety and first-aid and al that; she had taken after their doctor mother that way.

Rook's head was laid on Camila's lap and Boomer was sitting on the car floor still barking away.

 _" _Cállate!"__ Camila snapped at the dog, but it only spurred Boomer on.

"Shut the dog up!" Hannah yelled angrily.

"You try doing it!" Camila retorted.

The speed of the car caused them to go flying up in the air for a second when they went over a little hill going down.

"Oh shit!" Camila shrieked. Rook's leg went tumbling and the woman unconsciously groaned in pain.

"Be careful!" Camila chastised.

"I'm trying!" Hannah cried out. She veered the wheel to the left, just as Rook had said, and they all went flying to the right. Boomer whined and Camila almost felt sorry for him.

"How much longer?" Camila complained from the backseat. Her impromptu patient wasn't gonna last much longer.

"Almost there," Hannah grunted. She pressed harder on the gas and if possible, went even faster. Yep, they were going to crash into the trees and they were going to  _die._

"Holy fuck!" Camila exclaimed. She did her best to keep Rook on the seat, but the swerving really wasn't helping her case.

Out of the corner of their eye, they saw something they haven't seen in seventeen years; Fall's End's tower.

The little (what is, a reservoir?) structure had been wrecked by the nukes and so had the rest of the town, in their time. It was nostalgic to see, and almost heart-warming to experience Fall's End again.

"Wait..." Camila breathed out.

_Their time._

Since Fall's End had been obliterated in the Collapse and was no longer standing in 2035, then how come it was standing right here, right now?

"What the fuck?" she asked herself incredulously.

"Where's Spread Eagle?" Hannah cried out. Her frenzied brain hadn't yet made sense of the fact that _Fall's End was alive._

They were entering the town now and there weren't much milling people milling out and about, which was understandable, with John Seed snatching people off of the street and whatnot.

Hannah's crazed driving caused the car to swerve dangerously, disturbing the injured passenger. Rook groaned in pain.

"Slow the fuck down!" Camila cried out. "You're gonna kill her!"

"She's gonna die!" the other girl retorted. She slammed down on the breaks hard, and they all almost went flying through the roof to avoid running over a pedestrian. Hannah blared the honk.

"Watch it!" a man snapped in front of them. He looked like he belonged to the resistance if the gun slung on his back was any indicator.

"Where's Mary May?" Hannah demanded.

The man furrowed his eyebrows indignantly. "After you just tried to run me over?"

Hannah scowled. "Look, the deputy's in my backseat bleeding to death and if we don't get to Mary May 'cause of you, so God help me, I will  _cut your balls off!"_

The man's eyes widened to saucers. "Over, uh, there, um..." He gestured vaguely behind him.

"Where?" Camila interrupted.

"Straight and right!" he stammered.

Hannah wasted no time stepping on the gas. Mary May, assumingly was inside her bar, which apparently was just around the corner and as they turned, the two girls caught their first ever glimpse of the acclaimed bar. The Spread Eagle was small, with its green roof and scandalous logo hanging outside. Camila wished she could've said more about the place, but Rook was her priority. Once she opened the door, Boomer wasted no time jumping out and making a commotion. Camila attempted to try and move Rook, but the older (younger?) woman's weight and injury made it nearly impossible.

"Go get Mary May," Camila told her younger cousin tersely.

As Hanah disappeared into the bar, Camila examined Rook's thigh. Her wound wasn't looking too good; it was caked with blood and dirt, which could easily catch an infection if it didn't get treated any soon. From what she could see, the bullet wasn't even the problem at this point. Actually, the bullet was blocking even more blood from gushing out. The problem lay when the time came to take the bullet out, more specifically, how they would take it out and how they would treat Rook's leg without any of the necessary medical machines and instruments. 

The bar door banged open and out came Hannah. Trailing right behind her was a pretty blonde woman. She was slim, fair-skinned, wearing a grey shirt, topped by a green flannel. Blue eyes scanned the scene in front of her and once she saw what was wrong, her hands flew to her mouth and her blue eyes widened in shock. "Oh my God," she muttered.

She climbed into the car and examined her more closely. "What happened?" she questioned the duo. Her hand hovered over Rook's leg before she promptly drew it back.

"Peggie gunfight," was what Camila said; she didn't elaborate any further. The tension and fear in the car were running high. 

Mary May's eyes snapped up to Camila's. She held the woman's gaze for a brief second.

 "Can you help her?" Hannah interrupted.

Mary May drew her attention away from Camila and looked at the other girl. "Yeah, I can. Go to the church, not too far away from here; Pastor Jerome can help us. We need to hurry or the Deputy is gonna succumb to her wound."

With that, Hannah once again stepped on the pedestal and hurried into the aforementioned church, hoping that somebody would at least be able to help the Deputy.

Hell, it'd be even better if someone were to help in the clusterfuck situation Hannah, Camila, Domenico and Bridget were in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i post in the middle of the night (12:11 where I live). can't wait for Rook to get better and for Dom to absolutely get broken.  
> Cállate!- Shut up!


	10. Chapter 10

The room was suffocating Hannah decided.

Not a sound could be heard and the tensions were so high, it could be cut with a knife.

It felt hot and cold, sad and even sadder.

Camila’s head was bowed, her forehead resting on her clasped hands. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were moving rapidly in whispers. Whether it was in silent prayer or something else to whatever powers that be were up there, Hannah decided she didn’t care.

Not like the Lord had ever cared in her opinion.

She herself was seated on a little couch. She felt detached from the outside world like she just didn’t have the energy in her to deal with anything anymore.

They had been sitting outside a little room that Rook was situated in after what felt like eternity driving through the better part of Holland Valley to get her the medical care she needed.

As a matter of fact, Hannah felt as she didn’t didn’t even have the life to deal with whatever the fuck had happened to her--and simultaneously her cousins, as well. After Rook had been taken in by a much, much younger Pastor Jerome and Mary May and another person who clearly knew what they were doing, Camila had taken her outside on the premise of talking about something “serious”. Oh, if only Hannah knew how serious it truly was.

Camila had grabbed her hand and pulled her outside, to a secluded little corner. She had grasped Hannah’s hand into her own, looked her in her Seed blue eyes.

_ We’re not in 2035 anymore, Camila had said so softly yet so gravely at the same time. _

_ Hannah had let out a stark and crisp laugh, cutting through Camila’s softness jaggedly. Her cousin stared at her earnestly; she spoke no words and let her eyes do all the talking. _

_ Hannah tore her hands away from Camila’s. “No….” she gasped softly. “No--” _

_ “Fall’s End is here,” Camila cut her off. “Pastor Jerome’s not old, Rook’s not pregnant, Peggies attacking us when we clearly have a treaty… We’re not in the right time, Hannah,” her voice was hushed, but it didn’t lose its edge. _

_ Hannah shook her head disbelievingly. “Not possible,” she denied. No, no, no, it just couldn’t be. Time-travel was science fiction, something you would find in a sci-fi show like Doctor Who, not in real life, not in real time! _

_ Tears must’ve started dripping onto her face because Camila’s hands cupped her cheeks and brought her forehead to the older woman’s lips. _

_ “Hey, hey,” she said reassuringly. “We’ll find a way to get back. We’ll find Dom and Jet and we’re gonna get the hell outta here.” She swiped the tears off of her cheeks, but Hannah’s eyes were still pooled with the salty substance. _

_ She felt Camila wrap her arms around her comfortingly and she did the same. She buried her head into Camila’s neck and sobbed for all its worth. _

_ Which was not that much. Crying did not improve Rook’s condition, nor would it going to help them find out where Domenico and Bridget were right now. _

_ If they were going to find the two without attempting to mess up the past too much, then they needed to take action immediately. _

Hannah’s eyes were unblinking and she didn’t realize her eyes had started to leak again. Her eyes were trained on the door, hoping,  _ needing _ it to open with news.

Lo and behold it did.

Hannah leapt to her feet as Pastor Jerome and Mary May and a doctor, Charles, they said his name was, all came shuffling out the makeshift clinic inside the church.

Camila glanced up at them from her spot on the chair. “Well?” she queried. She too, had gotten up on her feet.

The doctor, Charles let a sigh escape from his lips. He took his bloodied gloves off one by one, being careful as to not get any on his own hands. “It’s not as good as we’d hoped.”

“Oh my God,” Camila whimpered.

“What Doctor Lindsey meant,” Pastor Jerome interrupted. “Was that the Deputy is now in better shape, although she still has a lot of recovering to do. The bullet didn’t cut too deep, but it was too close for comfort. Now she’ll rest until she’s well enough to get back up on her feet.”

His black hair contained no traces of white and his face was unmarked with much fewer wrinkles. His clerical collar was not spared, with splotches of blood marring the once white garb. His eyebrows were furrowed with concern. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Camila’s head snapped to hers as Hannah wiped the tears off of her cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,”

Pastor Jerome nodded. “I think I’ll be changing out of these clothes, get things sorted around,” he gestured to himself. “I would appreciate if the two of you were to stay with the deputy and keep an eye on her.”

Now it was Mary May who snapped her head over to him. She looked as if she wanted to protest but Pastor Jerome’s stern eyes warned her otherwise. She bit her lip but threw a wary look at the two cousins standing in front of them.

“If you’ll excuse us,” the priest bid them farewell and ushered the other two out of the stifling room.

Silence reigned once again.

“Come on,” Camila grabbed hold of her hand and lead her inside of Rook’s room. “Let’s keep an eye out for the Dep.”

…

The room Domenico in was dark when he attempted to open his eyes.

That or he just couldn’t open his eyes at all from the stifling amount of dried tears and eye crusts around his eyelids.

When he tried to move his hands to wipe them away, he found out that his hands were tied behind him. He was sitting on a cold, metal chair, he realized. He took sight of the environment around him, craning his head to examine his surroundings.

The deep blood red of the walls was strung with what looked like a tool rack, with stapler gun and so, so much more. The sight of several flaps of skin stapled to a wooden board revolted him. The more Domenico craned his head and looked, the more chills went down his spine.

This wasn’t a room, this was a fucking dungeon.

Domenico’s breathing became laboured and his heart pounded dangerously against his chest as he did his best to shuffle his chair forward.

“Help!” he cried out. His voice rang out in the empty room.

His ears were ringing from the silence and Domenico could swear he heard a chuckle from somewhere.

A click of the lock and a sliding of doors.

A chuckle from behind filled his ears. It was low and guttural and it sent another set of shivers down his spine as sweat poured from his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John Seed, with darker hair and his trademark smirk and his slow, confident gait came to a stop right in front of him.

He was donned in his usual blue coat with the miniscule planes dotting the fabric. He wore his blue unbuttoned button up underneath a vest. His shoes were shiny, as was his belt.

Probably Gucci.

Domenico dragged his eyes from his uncle’s shoes to his uncle’s bright, sadistic blue eyes.

“You know, sin is engraved into the heart of humanity,” he started. His voice was low and breathy. “It’s something we commit every single day, and it’s something we cannot be absolved of unless we say  _ yes, _ ”.

John leaned forward so closely that his and Domenico’s noses were almost touching.

“Don’t you want to be free?” he asked earnestly. His voice was so soft and so melodic and smelled of spearmint (Domenico shuddered), he could see why the Weak were so easily swayed by the Baptist. He probably brushes his teeth with Louis Vuitton toothpaste or something.

Faith the Siren, Domenico snorted in his head. John and Faith could easily switch roles.

When Domenico stayed silent, John drew back and threw his hands in the air. “Sin is so dirty, it makes us impure and unworthy!” he snarled. “It makes you feel filthy! Lust? Greed? Pride? Wrath? Confess your sins,” he paused and stepped closer to Domenico once again and he tapped his chest harshly with each word.

“And you,”

“Will,”

“Be,”

“Free,”

Domenico could see where Bridget got her melodramatics from.

“I just want my cousin,” Domenico croaked out after a moment of silence.

“John gave him a perplexed look. “What?”

“I said I just want my little cousin,” Domenico repeated again. Not like he could tell his uncle of the crazy fuckery of time-travelling so he’d spin him a lie. Anything to avoid death, really. “And my sister and my other cousin. You see, we were just driving around outside of Hope County and we kind of just, ended up inside and then we all got kidnapped by your cultists and now my poor, baby cousin is away from me and she’s probably bawling her eyes. She’s very attached to me, you see--”

John slammed his hand down on the desk with the tool rack. “I asked you a question, not your life story!” he snapped.

_ Uncle John, you’re a hypocrite,  _ Domenico thought in his head.

“I just want my baby cousin, sir,” he added in for good measure.

John sighed and smoothed back his hair. He stared at Domenico for a little bit and then his eyebrows furrowed. John grasped his chin and tilted his head to meet his eyes and stared deeply.

It started to make Domenico uncomfortable, actually.

“Your cousin needs protection and you protect her,” John stated. He turned around and grabbed-- _ was that a fucking tattoo gun! _

Domenico squirmed in his seat.  _ Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, _ his mind supplied.

John turned back around. “You remind me of my brother, you know,” he said empathetically. “Always seeking to protect his family. I remember when we were young and my parents used to beat us when we were just  _ children, _ ” he slammed the gun onto the table harshly, shaking to tool rack in the process.

Domenico’s face blanked.  _ Oh my god, does he know? _

“Oh,” he said meekly.

“Yes,” John replied. “Tell me about yourself. Any vices? Bad habits? Every young man has one, I know that,” he bared his pearly whites and Domenico recalled John’s troubled past in Atlanta before Joseph had found him.

As Domenico studied his uncle whilst he was talking, he made a mental comparison of this man and the man he would become. This John was more haggard in his actions; he was brash and quick-tempered and mostly everything he was not in the future. Bridget’s father was tender and loving and maybe a little bit hot-headed still.

Old habits die hard, Domenico supposed.

“Can’t think of any,” the younger man reasoned.

“Come now,” John said lowly. “Never fallen into bed with a woman only to leave her the day after?”

_ Actually, I think I might be gay, _ Domenico thought, but that wasn’t a thought he was about to share just yet.

John chuckled. “Hm, any drugs then? A time when you just let loose and taken one too many pills or smoked?”

Domenico pursed his lips. As all plant life do when left unattended, they either die or grow uncontrollably. And without any human interference for seven years, weed had grown prosperous in the wild.

And boy did Hope County have shit ton of it.

“Ah,” John said in a drawn out way. “”Narcotics it is then. To get away from something? Get away from the pain of life? To feel as if you’re high and mighty?” he snickered at the little unintentional pun he made. “The constant need to feel satisfied because life around you isn’t?”

When Domenico stayed silent, John made a move with his tattoo gun. He bared his teeth threateningly as he took a little pocket knife out of a pocket and flipped it open, the ‘zing’ of the metal sliding open powerful in the room. He cut Domenico’s shirt open, just by the chest. “Taking drugs can warp your view of the world, boy. Gluttony it is then,”

“No!” Domenico cried in distraught. Damn him, if his uncle was going to tattoo his supposed sin onto his fucking chest, he might as well get it right. “Envy,” he said hurriedly.

John raised his eyebrows curiously. “Oh?”

“Envy,” Domenico said shallowly. “I… wanted things I couldn’t… didn’t have. Wanted to not feel the pain.” He looked his uncle straight in the eye. “My daddy didn’t love me, you see,”

John nodded glumly. Domenico wasn’t stupid, he knew what Grandfather Seed had done to hi three young boys. He’d seen scars older than even his mother littering his father’s back. He’s heard the screaming and crying at night as his  _ mama _ hushed his father back to sleep.

If it meant manipulating his uncle’s feeling to get out of this hellhole room, then Dom would do what needed to be done.

“Understandable,” John nodded along. “I was the same way until The Father found me. He offered me solace and a comfort I hadn’t experienced in a long time. My brothers and I built the Project from the ground, we made a little community for people like us. We had faith and our flock would too. Join us and we can help  _ you. _ ”

Domenico’s breathing became more laboured and his heart palpitated violently.  _ Lub dub, lub dub. _

“Envy, oh envy,” John shook his head. He turned the tattoo gun on and the soft vibrating sound sent Dom’s head reeling.

_ No, no, no. _

Thankfully, a click and static of a radio saved Domenico from his fate. The sound of the voice had his hair standing, however. 

“Brother,” Joseph Seed’s desperate voice tuned in. “I need to see you now. Our brother and sister are already are already making their way as we speak. It’s a matter of grave circumstances.” With that the radio shut off.

John sighed and placed his tattoo gun down. “It seems The Father is calling for business. We’ll see about your Envy later.”

He turned and walked around the chair briskly, off towards the doors and Domenico was left with his own thoughts once again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 10th chapter anniversary! believe it or not, this is the farthest i've ever gone in any of my fics, lmao. this is also the longest chapter i've ever written, but what better way to celebrate, right?


	11. Chapter 11

Rook’s little room was sparsely decorated and quiet, with only the cousins talking quietly in a corner of the room. They stood by a little window, looking down on the front of the church. It was pretty empty outside, with only the grass and a couple of trees on the front swaying in the gentle breeze.

Hannah stood with her back to the little window just below the steeple and Camila stood with her arms crossed in front of her.

“How do you plan to get Jet and Dom back?” Hannah asked her doubtedly. Her eyebrows were scrunched and there was still dried blood on her face--on both of their faces, probably. Pastor Jerome and his party had left only a scant half an hour ago and they weren’t quite sure where to get freshened up, especially when Mary May was acting quite hostile; understandably so.

Camila was silent for a couple of moments before she responded. “Look, clearly we’re in Fall’s End--” Hannah gave a snort at that, which Camila pointedly ignored. “Which means we’re in Holland Valley, which means all Peggies in the area answer to John,”

“Which makes things a little bit harder because we can’t exactly mess ‘with the natural order of things’,” Hannah deadpanned. “If Dom and Jet get taken to Uncle John then shit gets messed up because Bridget’s not even born yet and every decision they make are gonna count for everything in the future!”

“Lower your voice!” Camila hissed as Rook let put a particularly sigh from the bed. “Look, we’ll sneak into Prosperity--” her voice faltered. “Seed Ranch, I mean. We’ll sneak in, get them out and then…”

“And then what?” Hannah interrupted. “You said we’re in 2018, so how are we getting back home, huh? Do you even know how we got here?”

Camila stared at her steely. “The place we were at, the house, with the signal tower and the dish, remember?”

Of course, Hannah remembered, how the hell could she not? It was the place where everything went down to shit after all.

The girl smiled bitterly. “Of course, I do, Camila,”.

“When that highwayman threw the blasting cap at us,” Camila continued. “He pushed us all the way to the signal towers. His blasting cap hit the signal towers and then it started crackling with lightning and then we just appeared on the grass on the brink of death,”

“So?” Hannah scowled.

“It had something to do with the signal towers then!” Camila raised her voice.

“Which means?” Hannah retorted. “If it had something to do with the signal towers, then how do we find the signal towers? What did the signal towers do? How are we going to reverse what the signal tower’s done, huh?” her voice gradually rose and the last word was a yell across the room. She was all up in Camila’s face now, her hands splayed out across her.

“Watch your tone,” Camila warned.

“No,” Hanna said angrily. “We’re in 20-fucking-18, smack down in the middle of a war we have no  _ fucking business being in and now our cousins have been kidnapped!” _

_ “Shut up!”  _ Camila hissed.

It was too late though. Rook had already aroused from her sleep from the commotion around her. The two cousins waited with bated breath as the deputy groaned and blearily opened her eyes. Her eyes opened and her grey orbs stared back at them groggily. And then--

“Oh my God!” Rook scrambled up and screamed in pain as her she felt the pain of her leg searing all over her leg. 

Hannah and Camila scrambled to her bedside as Camila assisted her with sitting up. “Don’t move,” the elder girl warned. “You might’ve ripped your stitches,”

They were so focused on Rook they didn’t hear the set of steps frantically bounding up the stairs until the door blew open and Mary May came barging in. Her eyes scanned the room at lightning speed before they landed on Rook, whose face was etched in pain, Camila with her hands on her arms and Hannah restraining the deputy’s legs.

It must’ve looked like a crime scene to Mary May because her face turned to glower and scowl at the two of them.

“What are you doing to her?” she scowled.

Camila turned to open her mouth but her future aunt beat her to it. “It’s fine, Mary May,” she squeaked out. “They were just helping me get up,” her eyes betrayed her though, as they watered in pain.

Mary May regarded the two with suspicion. Camila bowed her head. “I’ll go talk to her,” she said. “Please don’t let the deputy die under your watch,” Hannah gave her an offended look.

She stepped up to Mary May. “May we talk outside?” she asked curtly. She was only a little taller than the blonde. Mary May regarded her steely before she sidestepped to make way for the door.

Once Camila stepped through and the door was closed, she turned to inspect the other woman. She was at least ten years older than her, in this time that they were stuck in.

“Look, I know you don’t trust us,” Camila said lowly.

“I don’t,” Mary May responded coldly. “For all I know, it was you who shot Rook.”

“Why would we do that?” Camila asked incredulously. “What do Hanna and I have to gain from shooting Hope County’s hope, driving her all the way back here just to get healed up again?”

“Maybe you want something from her,” Mary May argued back.

_ Pervasive,  _ Camila though in her head. “If I wanted something from the deputy, I would’ve taken it already and left her dead.” 

Mary May was silent. “Then how did you manage to just come across her, right place, right time?”

“Because my cousins and I were travelling around.” she reasoned calmly. Not quite the whole truth, but it’ll have to do for now. “We got hijacked by the high--cultists,”.

Close, way too close, Camila shivered.

“They put up a good chase, even when we tried to lose them, but they got to us in the end,” she continued. “They took my brother and our little cousin. We tried chasing after them, but that’s when we saw Rook. She was fighting three of ‘em Peggies all by herself and we helped out. She got shot, though, and Hannah fended them off while we lugged her onto the truck and drove here.”

The other woman stared at her unrelentingly. Camila threw her hands up in the air. “Look, if you don’t want to believe it, then fine, but I’m here, my cousin is here, and Rook is here--”

And Sharky too, apparently.

“Dep! Dep!” The pyromaniac’s voice called from downstairs.

“Jesus Christ,” Mary May muttered. She tore her eyes away from Camila. “It’s fuckin’ Boshaw.”She looked down at the stairs leading onto the little area for praying. “We’re not here, Sharky!”

For the first time since they got here, Camila got her first good look at Sharky Boshaw, seventeen years younger.

His beard was shorter, much less full and a lot less grey, but his eyes still held the same mirth.

Well, maybe not in right now, since he was clearly balls out of his mind.

“Where’s my best friend, Mary May?” he cried dramatically. His flamethrower was slung behind his back and Camila was suddenly wary that the church would burn down with all of them inside.

“Um,” Camila hesitated. “Are you sure you’re good to go with a flamethrower inside a wooden church?”

Mary May did a double take. “What the--No! Sharky, no! Out!”

Sharky made a screech of protest.

“Look,” Camila intervened quickly. She quickly took the flamethrower from Sharky’s hands and put it in Mary May’s hands. “Mary May can have the flamethrower so she can feel nice and safe knowing a weapon of destruction is not in your hands,” she put her hands on Sharky’s shoulders and lead him into the room with Rook. “And you, my guy, can talk with your best friend inside the room,” As she stepped across the door, Camila turned back to look at Mary May, her hands full with the fire-spitting weapon. She nodded her head once and then closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is meant to be more of a filler chapter, but I felt a little guilty at not posting for a little while cause NEW DAWN IS OUT, my guys!!!! Whoop! i've also never said this before but this unbeta'd work!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this work is unbeta'd so please forgive me!

“Dep? Hey, dep? Deputy? Best Friend?” Sharky chattered nervously. He speed walked all the way to Rook’s bed and plopped on the little wooden chair by her bedside. “You good, chica?”

Rook chuckled weakly. “Yeah, I’m good, man. They got me bad though, shot me in the stupid leg and now I can’t even walk properly,” she complained. She gestured to her bad leg, her bandages stained with a little bit of blood.

“That’s good, that’s good,” Sharky blew out a breath. He clapped his hands together excitedly. “Did ya blow ‘em up?”

Rook grinned. “Sure did. There were three of them and…” her grin turned into a frown. “I think two more. Were they…” she asked Hannah and Camila hesitantly.

The two girls remained silent at first before Camila sighed. Her loose curly brown hair, once held up in a Dutch braid, had come undone and now it spilt on the front of her face. Her eyes were weary and she had an air of defeat around her, even if the other two participants in the room couldn’t feel it. “They were our cousins,” she said slowly. “The Peggies took them.”

“I’m sorry,” Rook said softly. She took Camila’s hands in her own and squeezed as a gesture of comfort. It was warm with a hint of ruggedness from her time constantly running around with guns in her hands.

“We will get them back,” Hannah said surely from the other side of the bed. “Camila and I are going to find a way and we’re going to bust in and get them back, and then we’ll leave this place and--”

“Hannah,” Camila interrupted. Her cousins had unshed tears pooling in her glassy and haunted blue eyes. Her henley was tattered, with splotches of blood staining it.

Hannah’s head snapped to her. “We’re getting them back,”

“We will,” Camila reassured her.

Sharky and Rook threw their heads back and forth watching the ordeal between the cousins. Sharky’s mouth was hanging slightly ajar whilst Rook looked at them in confusion. “They were taken?” she asked.

“Yeah, by the stupid cultists,” Hannah answered. 

“If they were taken by cultists, no doubt they would be taken to John since all the Peggies in Holland Valley answer to him indefinitely,” Rook murmured under her breath. She stared at her feet steely before looking at the cousins heatedly.

“I can help you,” she said. Her eyes were shining with determination and her face was hard-set.

At once, all the people in the room other than Rook let out a protest.

“No, no, no,” Camila said at the same time as Sharky let out a nervous laugh. “Po-po, I don’t think that’s the best idea,”

Rook shook her head. “I was there when they got kidnapped, Shark. If I wasn’t so Weak…” her voice faltered at this.

Camila let out a hiss under her breath. Damn her father’s cruel “conditioning” trials.

“I can help you get them back,” Rook said once again. “I can get you and you up close to John,”

There was a connotation behind that sentence that Hannah and Camila could feel. They looked at each other.  _ Rook must already have been with Uncle John then,  _ they thought.

Camila pursed her lips. “We can’t--”

“Camila, can we talk outside?” Hannah cut in. Everyone snapped their heads towards her. She held Camila’s questioning gaze challengingly, not at all breaking eye contact.

The elder cousin sighed. “Excuse us,” The moment she turned away, Hannah started dragging her over to the door. 

“Hey!” Camila said indignantly, but before she could even let out another protest, the door slammed shut behind them.

“Well,” Rook said. “That was interesting, don’t you think?” she turned her gaze over to him, finding him staring at the door with his mouth slightly ajar.

“Sharky?” she questioned concerningly. She looked at him intently before finally finding the cause of his silence. “Augh, Sharky!” she said in disgust.

“They’re hot!” he said in defense.

…

Outside the door, hushed whispers were arguing back and forth.

“We need her help” Hannah argued with her cousin.

“She’s hurt and we don’t have any time to waste!” Camila retorted. Her arms were flailing around wildly in true Latina fashion.

“You said so yourself that we can’t interfere with the natural order of things!” Hannah responded madly. “If we decide to do this ourselves, we could very well fuck up. Rook knows Hope County, we don’t!”

“Knowing Hope County is the least of our problems!”

“It is when we’re from seventeen years into the future!” At once Hannah gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes didn’t lose the desperation though.

_ “Callate,” _ Camila snarled. “Our problem is bad enough, no need to let that out, too”

“Still,” Hannah bit back. Desperately. “Having Rook with us gives us a lot of advantage. We’ve never even stepped foot in Montana until 2018! We go gallivanting around, how long would it take for us to get  captured like Jet and Dom, huh?”

“We’ve dealt with more highwaymen!”

“That’s different! The Highwaymen are a problem we deal with in our time! We don’t know how many Peggies survived the bombs! We go shooting around random cultists, we wipe out people that could possibly exist in the future! It’s too risky of a plan to go in guns blazing like we usually do.” Hannah stared at Camila with her Seed blue eyes. The other woman stared at her, lips pursed, brown eyes swirling with stubbornness and vexation. She was silent, her body poised slightly to her side with her arms angrily crossed across her torso. She looked so exhausted, wearing her battle-hardened facade. Hannah sensed the feeling that her cousin wasn’t quite receptive to her perspective yet so she elaborated.

“The highwaymen think they own Hope County down to the core. They don’t think that we’re a threat, Mickey and Lou,” she said softly, laying her hand on Camila’s shoulder. “They don’t care that we don’t have the means to rain hell on them. Whether or not we fight the highwaymen with cunning or with brashness, nothing changes.  _ Not in 2018.  _  You said so yourself; all of our actions have consequences and if we’re not careful, we could fuck up big time. Camila,  _ let Rook help us.” _

Camila said nothing for a silent moment. Then, she turned around sighing, heading back to Rook’s room.

Hannah shook her head and with a moment’s hesitation, followed Camila back into the room. She could see Rook and Sharky following her with wary eyes.

“I’m going with you two,” Rook said boldly. She moved her body to sit up, grasping onto Sharky’s hands to steady herself. “We’re gonna find your cousins and get you the hell outta here,”

Rook said it so determinedly, Hannah felt compelled to feel hope since this whole time-travelling fuckery had come into place.

They could do this. They would get Domenico and Bridget back, figure out a way to get back to their own time and do exactly so.

They would. They had to.

“Well,” Camila smiled slyly, looking down at the ground before bringing her brown orbs back up to Rook’s face. “Not like we can stop you, huh?”

Rook grinned.

“Well, now that’s done with, either of ya’ ladies free later on?” Sharky cut in. Realizing that all three women were bluntly staring at them, he became flustered, his face glowing red and his hands coming to scratch the back of his head. “I-I mean if y’all are willing of course. Wouldn’t force y’all to go out with me, ya know, I think, well, I-I mean I know that my company is sometimes overbearing as some say, so you totally don’t have to if ya’ don’t want to--”

“Sharky!” Rook admonished as Hanah and Camila laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not updating any sooner, i recently started playing far cry: new dawn and man, I gotta say, the game is a lot more than a shit ton of people have been saying. The easter eggs made me feel so nostalgic tho. the expeditions were so much fun to do and i recommend playing the game. It is a lot shorter than a full-fledged game tho, so that's that.


	13. Chapter 13

The Spread Eagle bar on the inside was a different view from the outside, Camila noticed. The lewd logo hanging outside definitely didn't reflected the bar’s aura. There weren’t many people inside, with the fighting going on and all that, but it was safe to say that it wasn’t empty. There were a couple of people milling about and seated, some with drinks in their hands and some without.

Hannah and Camila were not one of those people with no drinks in their hands.

Camila and her cousin had chosen to seat in a shady and quiet corner of the bar, wanting to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Hannah sat in front of her, nursing a half a bottle of _Jack Daniels_ , staring glumly at the shot glass in front of her. She toyed with the little glass cup, idly twirling it around her hand.

It was an awfully sunny day in Hope County and the sun shone through the bar’s windows and straight into the whiskey so that a kaleidoscope of amber and brown swirled inside the bottle.

It reminded Camila awfully of her baby brother’s eyes.

She herself was feeling out of it. Their little agreement with Rook earlier and the whole ordeal had taken a shit ton out of her and Camila would be lying if she didn’t say that she was up for a nap and a drink and a good, long and hot fuckin’ shower.

She laid her head down on the table and closed her eyes.

Why, oh why did everything have to go so, so wrong?

 _It’s the Seed curse,_ her mind tried to tell her.

 _Shut up,_ she told herself.

A silence passed between the two ladies before Hannah spoke up. “How do we start?” she asked raspily. Her Seed blue eyes inherited from her father--unfortunately, Hannah would always say-- glistened with restrained tears and defeat. Neither of them had still yet to take a shower so both of them looked like roadkill.

“Rook said she could take us to John,” Camila said muffled. Her warm breath blew right back into her face and she grimaced at the combined sourness of the whiskey and her own rancid breath.

“Which means entering the belly of the beast,” Hannah replied stoically.

“Which means Seed Ranch,” Camila finished. She raised her head and her vision blurred trying to adjust to the light. “But where would John keep his captives?”

“Probably in a dungeon under his mansion,” came a voice from beside them. Mary May stood in front of their table, an apron wrapped around her waist. It was clear that she had changed out of their bloodied shirt and she looked meticulous--unlike them.

“I see you’ve taken my whiskey,” she remarked at the half-empty Jack Daniels in front of her. “You gonna pay for that?”

“Depends,” Camila replied dryly. “You take copper as payment?”

Mary May snorted. “Only if you cash that copper to a jeweller or something. Not that Fall’s End would have one. Or the whole county as a matter of fact. Lots of the local folk fled when the Seeds came into town. That or they were indoctrinated into their crazy cult.”

Camila raised her eyebrows as Mary May slid in the booth beside her and took a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. “Either of you willing to grace me with the details of how exactly the deputy came to get hurt?”

Camila sighed as Hannah chuckled lowly. “Long story, my friend,”

“I got some time,” Mary May replied coolly. She set the bottle down in front of her with a bang, before she looked up at Hanah expectedly. Camila noticed the little frown on the blonde’s face, but she made no mention.

The two cousins stared at each other. _Where to start?_  Camila thought in her head.

Hannah stared at her right back. _We need to bullshit this._

Camila turned to Mary May. “We were driving around Hope County,” she started slowly.

“Why?” Mary May asked. “You know them Peggies are everywhere, so why would you even consider doing something as risky as that?”

Camila opened her mouth but before she could eve get a sound out, Hannah answered for her. “‘Cause our fathers were Peggies,” she said. Camila snapped her head up to Hannah’s and stared at her warningly. The other girl ignored her. Mary May had a similar reaction, but Hannah held her hand up. “No, listen. Our dads were Peggies and they believed in the Collapse and all that stuff. They took the Voice’s word to the heart and they were doing all this bad stuff. We didn’t really understand what they were doing, but we realized that what they were doing was bad. They were hurting people--kidnapping, torturing people in the name of the Voice that the Father claims to hear.”

Hannah’s blue eyes bore into Mary May’s own. The blonde regarded Hannah with wariness and silence but otherwise let her continue.

“So we ran away,” Camila continued. “Well, more like drove away but that fucking failed miserably,”

Mary May snorted. “What happened to your dads?” she asked somberly.

Camila stayed silent for a moment. How would she bullshit this one? Her mind went astray, drifting back to times long gone, buried in her mind.

 

_A young girl sat on a chair as her mother braided her hair, humming soft Latin songs under her breath as her hands wove in and out of her daughter’s curly brown strands._

_The warms waft of white musk filled the room as her mother’s perfume was sniffed by her daughter. It gave her a comforting feeling of being loved so fully by this woman behind her._

_Still, though._

_“Mama?” the young girl asked._

_“Si, bebe?” the woman responded, still working on her daughter’s hair._

_“Do you think Papa loves me?” The woman-- Valentina, her name was-- dropped the strands abruptly. She turned to face her daughter._

_At only three-years-old, Camila was already flowering to be a charismatic little girl, with round cheeks and chocolate brown eyes. Her tan skin, lighter than her mother’s courtesy of her white father, was soft to the touch as Valentina grasped her daughter’s cheek in her own hands._

_“Now what makes you say that?” her daughter’s brown eyes stared at hers so truthfully and vulnerable._

_“Don’t know,” she shrugged. “I wanna know who is, Mama,”_

_Valentina swallowed. “He-he can’t be here right now, sweetie,” she responded softly. She lifted her daughter up into her lap and laid both of them down onto the bed._

_“Why not?” Camila pouted._

_“Because he’s a soldier, your Papa,” Valentina explained. “He took a big plane just like me when I came to America. He’s fighting the bad guys in a big, big, war,” her Colombian accent was thick, even though she’d been in America for two years._

_The little girl looked up at her mother. “Well when he gets back, do you think he’ll like me?”_

_Valentina kissed her baby girl’s cheek. “I’m sure he will love you,”_

 

Camila’s thoughts were broken by the sound of Hannah snapping her fingers in front of her.

“--mila? Camila?” Camila blinked her eyes. “Are you alright?” Hannah asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” Camila breathed out. “Yeah, I’m fine,”

Hannah drew her head back and Camila felt as if she were being scrutinized.

“What are we talking about now?” she asked her companions. She felt Mary May shift to turn her gaze onto her.

“Our fathers,” she responded. “Yours in particular,”

“My father,” Camila echoed. “My mom always used to tell me about he would probably love me, once he got back home from the war.” she smiled bitterly. “Funny, how he and my mom had my little brother after that and then we all went our separate ways after. When our mom passed away, pops took us in and introduced us to the Peggie life. I figured ‘this is where he’s been hiding all along’. Didn’t take much for me to realize the bullshit the Project was high on. Bridget, our cousin, we took her too. Her dad was nuts, capturing people, tattooing them, doing all kinds of bullshit, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t love her,”

Mary May raised her eyebrows. “Tattooing people, huh? Sounds a hell lot like John Seed. He and the rest of his family are crazy fuckers.” The woman stood up and took the now empty bottle of whiskey with her.

“Look, we got off on a wrong start,” she said gingerly. “I acted brash back there and I’m sorry. The dep’s our only hope at this point in this stupid war and I’ll be damned if anything happens to her, yeah?”

Mary May threw her hands up and turned to walk back to the bar.

“Wait,” Hannah said. Mary May turned back and Camila looked on at her cousin as she dug around in her bloodied pockets and fished out a twenty.

“Here,” she held out the bill, but Mary May shook her head.

“The whiskey will be my apology,” With that, Mary May turned back to the bar to do her job.

Camila turned to look at Hannah with scepticism. “Well, then, Seed Ranch it is,”

“Seed Ranch it is,” Hannah echoed. “Not bad making up all that shit in there. If Mama heard you say that she was dead, she’d be wildin’ on you. Maybe kill herself and then haunt your ass off for the rest of eternity.”

Camila gave a stark laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first time no posting in the middle of the night. Also, lemme just say that this story was born and conceived before the release of New Dawn, so if any details don't match up, just keep this in mind. Happy Readings!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that the first chapters of this work were published before New Dawn's release so it will deviate from canon. I will try to stick somewhat closely to the plot now that the game's been released.

It took Rook a whole two and a half days to decide that she was well enough to walk on her own.

Her decision, mind you.

By the end of her bedrest that the veterinarian-turned-doctor had forced her to endure, Rook’s legs were itching from the ants that were crawling up her thighs, which actually made her injury a lot worse, but hey, it wasn’t like Rook was going to tell that to anybody.

In all honesty, though, the guilt had been eating her up whenever she was laying down. The two girls, Hannah and Camila, she had learned their names were, didn’t deserve that. From the last she saw of their cousin’s faces before she got KO’d, the youngest one seemed to be a teenager, sixteen at most, Rook thought.

_ She’s way too young to be fighting,  _ Rook thought in her head. Gingerly, she sat up from her bed and hissed as her back cracked rather loudly.

“Ah,” she sighed in satisfaction as she felt all the kinks in her back unwind. She wiggled her toes, relishing the feeling of the blood rushing through her feet.

Then she moved her thigh. Unbearable pain spiked up her thigh and Rook hissed and closed her eyes tightly all while biting her lips to muffle a scream that would surely attract literally anyone with ears.

She clenched her thigh muscles as the pain slowly edged away. Rook took another deep breath, feeling the air flow through her lungs. The room was quiet, with only the birds outside and the gentle breeze of the wind registering in her ears.

Until, of course, John just had to chime in.

“Oh Deputy,” he crooned. “So strange not to hear of any of your usual havoc and wrath being brought upon my men and land...Are you reflecting perhaps? On the absolute foolishness and atrocities you have committed in the name of your little resistance? It’s not too late to ‘come’ to me, you know,” Rook could absolutely see the shit-eating grin that John would no doubt have on his face at his little pun.

Rook sighed. She was not ready to deal with any of his fuckery, not right now, no siree. Nope.

“Fuck off John,” she sighed into the radio that she had grabbed from her bedside. “And you have your men to thank for my silence. Tell them ‘thank you’ for shooting me and fucking up my thigh.”

Silence befell the radio. Then, “Well, Deputy, that’s awfully unfortunate,” John drawled out the last word, but Rook could just imagine him gritting his teeth in anger. “No doubt whoever had shot her would get the beating of his life.

“Perhaps it’s a sign from God,” her inamorato continued. “To lay your arms and pride down and embrace the word of the Father. Come to me, Wrath, and atone for your sins. The Father is a merciful man, after all, my dear. All you have to do is say  _ yes _ ,”

Again with him trying to do his whole spiel on her and trying to convince her to join his brother’s crazy cult! To Rook, it seemed as if John would just never get the meaning of ‘no’.

So, out of spite and pure pettiness (and maybe later on, when her leg wasn’t as fucked up, pure sexual delight and thrill), Rook simply did the one thing she knew would just absolutely tickle John’s abominable wrath.

“No,” she said deadset and then promptly shut off her radio.

The quietness of nature once again reigned in her little room. She tried to convince herself to once again gather the courage to get her leg to move, but before she could even lift herself up, there was a rapping at her door.

“Come in,” she said and Camila poked her head in.

“Hey,” Rook greeted.

Camila stepped in and the deputy was relieved to finally see her in clothes that didn’t look like they had been through a hurricane and washed with blood. The girl--  _ woman? _ Rook supposed. She only looked maybe a year or two older than herself.

“Hey,” the other girl breathed in. “You feeling any shittier?”

Rook laughed. “Getting shittier every day,”

Camila let out a wry smile. “Just so you know, two days is not enough for any injury--physical or mental-- to heal.

“Who’s gonna check me?” Rook huffed.

Camila stepped closer to her bed and sat right beside her.

“Look, dep, I just want you to know 'thank you'… for offering to help find my brother and my cousin. We never really associated with the other Peggies much, so we’re not really that well known. Bridget’s only sixteen and Dom has a tendency to not fit in with the regular population so… thank you, again.”

Camila looked at her earnestly from beside her that it almost unnerved Rook. There was just something about her that served to warn Rook that however nice she was now, that she was someone who was calculating her steps, all day, every day.

Rook recalled how she fought like a hellion the day she got shot, how ferociously she was gunning the cultists down and how Camila saved her life.

“Not a problem,” Rook said lowly. She looked down at her feet. Their proximity was making her quite uncomfortable and it must’ve shown because Camila leaped to her feet immediately.

“Sorry,” she stammered. “Hannah told me that I have a tendency to get a little too close for comfort sometimes and I just--um, I’m just gonna go,” She awkwardly lumbered her way to the door but before she could step out, Rook found herself stopping her.

“Wait,” the deputy called out. “Your cousin Bridget, right before she got taken away,” Rook stood up and would’ve fallen to the floor had it not been for Camila’s quick steps. She grabbed Rook by her arms and held her steady.

“Bridget… she said something to me,” Rook continued. She gestured for Camila to help her walk out of her dingy little room and downstairs to finally get some fresh air. Right before they crossed the threshold, Rook turned to face Camila. “She called me ‘mom’,”

Camila almost dropped her from her shock. “What?”

“She called me 'mom'. She was crying and she called me 'mom'. Was that just instinctive?” Rook questioned.

Camila’s mouth was gaped and her brown eyes were wide in shock.]

“Camila?” Rook queried. She shook her hand in front of the other woman’s face and Camila broke her facade.

“She called you ‘mom’?” she whisper-asked.

“Yeah, she did.”

Camila was silent for a few moments then licked her lips; Rook saw a flash of worry and panic briefly in her eyes. “Yeah, it must’ve been instinctive,” she muttered under her breath. She bit her lip and then looked at Rook.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked and Rook’s curiosity heightened even more; clearly this was not something Camila wanted to discuss.

“Yeah,” Rook responded. With Camila’s help, she limped her way down the set of stairs that the chapel had. “So what’s the plan?”

This time Camila smiled, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Glad you asked, deputy.”

For now, they talked amicably and headed on over to The Spread Eagle, where Hannah would no doubt be impatiently waiting.

…

The dingy little bar was a little quieter this time around, Rook noticed. No doubt the resistance had doubled their efforts since she had been leading them in doing their best to just piss off the Seeds in any way possible.

She spotted Hannah sitting over in a corner by herself nursing a glass of water, absentmindedly twirling the straw around. When Hannah saw them, she beckoned for them to hurry.

“No whiskey?” Camila asked, taking a seat beside her.

“Gotta keep my head clear,” she muttered. She procured a map from a satchel beside her and a piece of paper and a pen along with it. “So as of now, our best bet is Seed Ranch,”

“Yeah,” Rook responded. “Prisoner convoys in Holland Valley get taken to him to be baptized, just in a little river by his stupid mansion.”

“Yeah, we have the unfortunate luck of knowing that,” Hannah quipped; she and her cousin shared a look.

“Oh?” Rook raised her eyebrows.

“Long story short, we were in deep with the Peggies; our dads were in it and then so were we and then not too long after that we packed up our bags and here we are,” she grabbed Hannah’s cup of water and took a long sip.

Rook sensed that neither of the girls really wanted to talk about it so she dropped the subject for now, but their backstory only served to make her all the more curious. Who were they really? Not a lot of people were willing to leave the cult, even though a fair amount of the cultists were forcibly brought into the faith, so how on earth did the four of them manage to escape? Especially under the influence of Joseph and his batshit crazy ideas?

_ Later, _ Rook’s mind supplied.

“The only problem is that we have to avoid our fathers when we’re pulling this rescue off, because it would be, uh, really unfortunate if we had to come face to face with them,” Hannah grimaced awkwardly.

“Cool,” Rook nodded along. “Cool, so we just have to rescue your cousins ASAP without somehow bringing attention to ourselves. Furthermore, they are being kept in Seed Ranch where John Seed just  _ so happens to live in, _ which means guards  _ everywhere and also happens to be a base of operations that if we capture, could give the resistance an upper hand?” _

“Yep,” Hannah quipped. She circled Seed Ranch with her pen. “So, we head up to Seed Ranch and do a search of the whole place, right? Then we find Dom and Jet, bring the outpost down if we can and hightail it outta there. But before we do that, we gotta lure The Big Daddy outta his lair--” Rook choked and she felt her face get all red and flustered. Suddenly, the bar was too hot and from the corner of her eye, she saw the cousins share a smirk.

“Then when we have him all lured out, we grab Dom and Jet and then we leave this forsaken place and never look back.” Hannah put her pen down and she folded her hands pristinely in front of her and on the table like how villains did in the Bond movies.

“You in?” Camila stared at her deeply and once again Rook was unnerved at the feeling of intimidation she actually radiated, no matter how unseemly for her it looked.

“Fuck yeah,” Rook grinned. “One question though, how do we lure The Big Daddy out of his man lair?”

Hannah grinned. “What happens when the Yes Man gets ‘no’ for an answer?”

Realization dawned on Rook. She felt a smile form on her face; John’s extra and gigantic ‘YES’ sign.

“He throws a temper tantrum,” the deputy responded and immediately the thought of blowing up her lover’s (could they even call themselves that?) Hollywood parody sign brought her immense joy.

“So how do we go about doing that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I haven't update in what felt like an eternity, all thanks to March Break. My laziness contributed to my silence too. Anyways, here is the next chapter of Seedscapade!


	15. Chapter 15

Rook stood at the base of the hill with hands clutching at Carmina’s gun panel, a sharp grin on her face. She and the two girls had come up with a plan, and although it was pretty fucking reckless, it was a thought they all had in their minds.

They planned to separate, just to be on the safer side and it was just them three. When Rook had suggested entailing the Resistance’s help, they had profusely refused; they said something about it being a family matter and wanting to keep it on the low-low as much as possible. Rook thought it weird but shrugged it off. It would’ve been easier and frankly more fun with either Sharky or Hurk--hell, having both would be better--but the cousins insisted on it.

So now, she was in Nick’s plane, waiting for the cousins to radio in that they were at Seed Ranch. Her hands were antsy, fiddling around with the little buttons on the plane’s steering wheel. To be honest with herself, she kind of felt a little guilty, hovering right in front of John huge ass “YES” sign, getting ready to blow it to smithereens when he’d work so hard to erect it in all its eyesore glory.

Stop it, she admonished herself. What John’s doing is bad! Bad Rook! Don’t let personal feelings get in the way of professionalism!  
Yet here she was, getting ready to blow her not-lover’s annoying “YES” sign, all because he had left a particularly obvious hickey on her neck, leaving her to scramble to borrow a concealer from Addie to cover up, which led to Addie prying into her business, which led to her getting flustered at the older woman’s dirty, filthy mind, which led to her just running out of the house, face red and Addie cackling behind her.

It totally wasn’t because it was her job as the junior deputy to help all the people the cult’s been fucking with.

No matter, she thought to herself. No hard feelings.

Except there were. Her and John’s relationship was so fucked up and so wrong, that it just felt right to her.It sounded cliche, but Rook thought that she, may God forgive her, actually, genuinely, kind of liked John.

Emphasis on “kind of”.

John was not a person of ideal morals or even ethics and sometimes, it bothered Rook. A lot. Like right now, for example. She was having an existential crisis, in the form of a mock soliloquy, inside a flying plane, getting ready to blow the shit out of the “YES” sign in front of her.

Joy. Her life was so fucking great!

“Dep?” her radio crackled to life. “You good?”

“Yeah,” she responded. “Fine and fucking dandy,”

“You don’t sound so fine and dandy,” the other end of the line answered. By now, Hannah and Camila should have already reached the little hiding spot and Rook should be ready to blast the sign to smithereens once they gave her the good go.

“Yeah, well, welcome to life in Hope County,” Rook replied drily and Camila gave out such a stark laugh that Rook could almost see her expression in her mind.

A loud booming laugh, with bitterness behind her eyes, was what Rook was imagining.  
“Alright, well, Hannah and I are in position. You’re going to blow the shit out of John’s “yes” sign and watch in glee as his men scramble to try and take you down; meanwhile, Hannah and I are going to sneak in, find Domenico and Bridget and haul ass, we gucci?”

Rook raised a single eyebrow. “Gucci?”

“Gen-z stuff,” Camila replied. “You good to go, dep?”

“Yep,” Rook said happily and clenched and unclenched her fingers around the wheel. “And I’m not that old! I was born in 1992, mind you!”

“Blast away, my g!”

Rook grinned and pressed on the guns.

A hail of bullets rained down on the gargantuan sign and bullet holes peppered it white colour, like grains of pepper amidst a mound of salt.

This is for Joey, she said as she flew to the right.

 

This is for Staci, she said as she flew to the left.

This is for the Sheriff, she said as she flew back to the middle, still gunning away.

And maybe for Burke, because he was kinda an asshole, she added as an afterthought.

Rook grinned as she felt the vibrations of the recoil tremble under her hands. This is what John got for being such an attractive asshole.

“You’re doing great, dep,” she vaguely heard Camila’s voice through the radio. “I can see Peggies running back and forth like headless chickens. I can’t see John, but I bet he’s in rage mode right now!”

Rook pressed harder on the button, wishing there was a grenade launcher in the plane, but alas, there was not. If Hurk had come with her, then maybe she could’ve strapped him on top of the plane and had him shoot his rocket launcher, but plain old bullets would have to do.

“I can see some of the men start to panic, dep, you got the sign good. Oh, there’s one on the radio right now and he’s freaking out real bad!” Camila whisper screamed from the radio. “They’re planning something, dep, they’re starting to get into groups-- oh shit, they’re getting in the car!”

“Shut the fuck up and stop commentating!” she could hear Hannah’s voice come through. “Rook, you keep doing your thing; me and Camila are gonna wait ‘till some of the cultists have trickled out and then we’ll go in, ok? Hannah out.”

“Cool with me,” Rook responded as she pelleted the sign with bullet holes.

Not a second after Hannah ended her transmission, her asshole lover’s voice trickled in.

“Dep-yoo-tee,” his smooth, husky voice remarked. “Just what do you think you are doing?” Rook could practically see him gritting and gnashing his teeth, up in his master bedroom, pulling at the roots of his perfectly styled hair.

“Doing my job as a deputy,” Rook replied back.

“Tsk, tsk,” John replied. “That wrath is going to get you nowhere, my dear. It will fester at you unendingly, eating away at your soul. Stop this madness and atonement will be offered to you,”

Please, John didn’t add, but Rook knew he was thinking it all the same.

“It’s a hard knock life, Johnny boy. It’s just how things are,” Rook did her best to cover her remorse, but it still bled through. She turned off her radio and stopped gunning momentarily.

How had her life come to this? Just a couple of months ago, right before the end of the year, she was the newbie in the Sheriff’s office, a fresh transfer from Detroit, looking to settle and calm down.

What an absolute fucking lie that was.

Because now she was stuck in some Romeo and Juliet-esque tragedy, flying a plane, manning the guns, having a romantic crisis.

She failed to notice Hannah and Camila’s radio silence.

As she gunned away, only the thoughts of John and rest filled her mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I haven't updated in like, a month and a half. i was anticipating the final season of game of thrones and i kinda just flitted over to that fandom for a while and now ENDGAME just came out and i still haven't watched it and boy, am i shit scared.


	16. Chapter 16

“Shit, shit, shit, mayday! Mayday!” The awry sounds of gunfire and threats filled the air as Camila and Hannah ran for their lives, far away from the crates and bushes they were hiding in, and into the midst of smelly, ungroomed cultist men.

“This was such a bad idea!” Camila shrieked. She dodged a Hagrid on the left and another on the right as she weaved in and out of bodies.

Hannah panted beside her. “No shit! I didn’t think there were this many cultists at his place!”

“Get them!” A cultist yelled in fury as he took aim at the two girls. Dressed in a potato sack and armed with a shotgun, he raised his gun and it made a loud bang!

Hannah screamed and did her bust to duck without stumbling over herself. Camila savagely dragged her by the arm, looking frantically left and right for an escape route.

Hannah could feel the burn in her arm as she and Camila bounded away from the compound. In her thirty-one years alive, never had she done anything so stupid as breaking into a heavily guarded fortress like the youngest Seed brother’s. What fuckery was she committing?

Hannah panted as her feet bound against the ground. A quick look behind her head suggested that the farmhouse was getting farther and farther away now. The paved driveway gave way to a dirt road, dirtying her black boots.

Farther away, there was a white pickup truck fast approaching, emblazoned with the cult symbol on the hood.

Hannah’s throat tightened and her hand and feet slowly gave away. Camila beside her stopped too and just stood watching the car.

The truck came to a dangerous halt right in front of them and out stepped a well-dressed man with black hair and piercing blue eyes. His expensive blue coat was dotted with little white planes and his pristine black dress shoes thudded on the ground before them. The man approached them slowly whilst he clasped his hands together. “Well now, what do we have here? Some sinners that need confession?”

Hannah closed her eyes and if she were any stupider, she would’ve let the tears run down her cheek. 

John stepped closer to them and she almost took a step back if Camila hadn’t grabbed her hand, bringing her senses back. He gave them a dangerous cheshire grin and gestured his head to the ranch behind them.  
  
Hannah glanced at her cousin beside her and found that Camila was staring at their uncle head-on, brown eyes to blue, face stoic.

A Peggie bounded up to where they were, clutching a gigantic gun in his hand, huffing and puffing, his white face now tomato red. “Brother John!” he exclaimed, bending down to catch a breath.

“Some-some sinners tried to break in to our ranch, but-but we caught them!”

John looked past them and onto the man. “It seems that way, Peter. And it’s my ranch, not our ranch.”

Hannah didn’t think it was possible, but the Peggie-Peter’s face got even more red, like all the blood vessels in his face just broke and it was about to burst. John turned his gaze back to them.

“Ladies first?” he motioned with his hands wide open.  
…  
Seed Ranch was so wildly different from Prosperity, despite being the same property and Hannah immediately knew that as soon as she set foot inside the house. Gone were the wide-open front doors and the walls that surrounded it and, by God, even the mansion’s weirdly shaped structure that looked like cubes just stacked on top of one another.

Where Prosperity was messy and homely, Seed Ranch was meticulous and orderly; it looked more like a show house, meant for display rather than a place to live in. Despite the comfy cushions he had, all inviting in their warm colours, Hannah felt the coldness radiating from them.

John stepped and raised his hands in a welcoming manner. “Welcome to my humble abode, ladies. Gentlemen, if you would please leave us in peace.”

The following cultists slowly piled out of the pristine house, a contrast to their potato sack clothing and muddy pants and boots.  
John headed over to the kitchen and poured a glass of water for himself but none for Hannah nor Camila.

“Attempting to break into my home is a crime, ladies; I’m sure you don’t need a lawyer to tell you that.” He said as he leaned on his luxurious countertop. “And committing a crime makes you a sinner--”

“You have my brother,” Camila interrupted him. Her ginger brown eyes bore into his fearlessly. “You’ve got my brother and I really need him back, please.”

For a moment, John just stared at her in complete silence and perplexion. And then, his voice low, slow, and grave he said: “You try to trespass into my home, with your guns and your sins, just to tell me that you need your brother back? Whom I may not even have?” His eyes were furious, the blue turning stormy in an instant, his face contorted into a scowl.

Without missing a beat, Camila replied. “Yes.”

Hannah just looked at her cousin incredulously, then back to John. Then back to Camila, then back to John.

The silence between the two plus one was awkward, with none of the party ever making a move.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, John spoke. “I don’t think you understand how things work around here--”

“No we might not, but you still have my brother, sir.” Camila interrupted again. “My cousin and I, like, really, really need him, like, right now and we were told that you had him, locked in your basement or something.”

This time, Hannah really thought that Camila must’ve lost her brains.

John must’ve thought so too, because his whole face went red with rage and just as Hannah thought he was about to boil over, he smoothed his tattooed hand across his face, turned around and took a deep breath accompanied an arduous, long sigh. Then John turned back around and almost as if a curtain had been taken away from in front of his face, he froze and stared at both Hannah and Camila, eyes wide open and mouth set in “O”.

“Oh,” John chuckled afterwards. “Oh, I see…” Then with a flurry of his coat, he ran up the stairs before almost tripping over himself as he stopped abruptly midway. “Do get comfortable in the meanwhile and mull over your confessions, will you, dears?”

Hannah's eyes followed her uncle with her jaws slacked. “What-- what the ever-loving fuck just happened?”

From the look on her face, Camila didn’t know either. “Now how do we find Dom?”  
…  
In hindsight, John really shouldn’t have left two strangers alone in his foyer but after turning around and seeing them it was like God had personally lifted His hands from his eyes and truly opened them.

The darker girl on the left--Jesus, John could never have fathomed… how in the world had she ended up in a place like this? How did they end up in Hope fucking County of all places?

John bounded to his room, taking leaps like a gazelle; his mind focused on but one thing. In the walk-in closet in his bedroom, there was something he kept hidden there. Flipping and throwing around his numerous collection of expensive clothing, John was the epitome of a wild man.

“Oh, Jacob, oh Jacob…” he muttered to himself. His hands grasped a small box, the size of a lunch bag and he flipped the lid off.

There, underneath all the memorabilia of his previous sinful life, lay a picture.

Granted, it was a photocopy, but a picture nonetheless. John had found it one day, when his nosiness got the better of him.

It was when the brothers had first just settled in Hope County, new residents and they were all living in Seed Ranch before Jacob even gained the Whitetail Mountains.

He’d stumbled upon his brothers room one day, wide open in all its bare glory. John knew it was wrong of him to invade someone else’s privacy, especially his private brother’s, but the artist in him couldn’t help but reimagine what the room would actually look like if it was the least bit homely, with some nice throws on the bare wooden chair and comfortable covers and sheets better than the less than six hundred thread count one that Jacob had.

A flannel over here, to fit in with the mountain man aesthetic, a luxurious rolling chair over by the plain desk… and then he saw the wallet.

John froze and pursed his lips.

His brother was a cautious and private man, so leaving his wallet unattended was very, very suspicious, but John grabbed it anyway and as soon as he opened it, he was greeted with a family photo.

It was set clearly in Disneyworld; by the looks of it, someone else had taken the photo because there were four people posing happily in front of the castle.

A gorgeous woman, their mother clearly, with darker skin and loose brown curls stood in the middle and in front of her, stood a boy, with ringlets on top of his head, grinning sloppily. On the woman’s left and right were clearly, clearly the women from downstairs.

Sure they were a hell of a lot older now, both actually looking to be about his age or younger, but they were obviously the same women; same eyes, same facial structures.

He flipped the photo onto its back and found names corresponding to their positions. The girl on the right was Camila, the girl on the left was Hannah and the boy was Domenico but the woman was unnamed.

John paused and looked around his brother’s room to see if he’d come back yet.

Chirp, chirp.

John pocketed the picture and rushed over to his office to copy the photo. Who were the people in the photo and why did Jacob have a picture of them in his wallet?

As John returned the photo back perfectly in place and the sun slowly went down, he lay on his bed tossing and turning about, the photo and its story stuck in his mind.

Soon enough, as he stared at the photo longer and harder, John would come to tire and as he closed his eyes for the night, he swore he could see Jacob in Camila and Domenico. Almost.

John gasped. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. His eyes zeroed in on Camila’s face and he turned his eyes onto the floor as if he had x-ray vision and could see the girl from the first floor.

He bound up and hid the photo inside his vest pocket, his cheshire grin almost splitting his face up. No wonder he could see Jacob in the two kids some eight years ago; it’s because they were his children.

As he slowly walked down the stairs, John could hear their frantic talking over a radio.

“Holy fuck, Bridget’s up North!”

“Oh my God…”

As John entered his foyer, he could see the two women huddled in front of a radio, no doubt one they had stolen from one of the faithful.

“What are we gonna do? We still don’t have Dom and now Bridget’s up in your dad’s region!”

John’s eyebrows rose. Prognosis confirmed.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Camila’s frantic voice replied. He could see her pacing back and forth, practically chewing on the radio from worry.

Deciding to play it cool, John entered suavely.

“Have we thought about what we wanted to confess, Camila?” Said girl’s eyes snapped up to him in both surprise and momentary fear.

John turned to the other girl. “And you, Hannah?”. This time, he was just given a cautious but rock hard stare.

“I’m sorry?” Camila interjected.

“The Collapse is coming soon, ladies, but there’s still some time left to save you. But there are some more important matters to be talked about,” John took a couple of steps forward for some dramatic flair. “Specifically, whether or not my darling brother knows that his daughter is here.”

Camila stared at him in shock, then pursed her lips. “I don’t...I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.

John shook his head at her. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Camila. Lying is a sin!” he singsonged. “But if you do choose to go about that route, well, Jacob’s only a radio away from us.”

To prove his point he whipped up his radio from inside his coat and held it up for them to see. Just as he was about to put his finger on the button, Camila and Hannah shrieked. “Wait, okay, don’t!”

John paused.

Camila looked at him bitterly. “I just need my brother back, what more do you want?” she sighed tiredly.

“Domenico, yes…” he hummed.

‘How do you even know our names?” Hannah questioned. “I don’t recall us ever introducing ourselves.”

John smiled but said nothing.

“John,” Camila prodded. “How?”

There was a gentle desperation in her tone, something pleading…

Wordlessly, John took the photo out of his pocket and held it up for them to take and take indeed, the Gluttons that they were.

Camila snatched it out of his hands and took one look, before she burst out laughing, but not in a fun way. More like a pained laugh, carrying with it some sort of burden or bitterness. “Jesus, how long ago was this…” she muttered to herself. Hannah took a look and cringed.

“Oh, jeez-us!” she exclaimed. “Yikes, I was an ugly child. Oh, summer of 2011, what a time…”

This time, John really reeled. He may have been an absolutely stupendous and outstanding lawyer, the best of Atlanta (it’s not Pride speaking, just cold, hard, facts), but he wasn’t dumb at math. If the picture was taken in 2011 and it was now 2018, that means seven years had passed; not compatible with the current 30 year olds before him.

See, now, that most certainly did not make sense.

John’s face must’ve shown it or Hannah must’ve realized what she just said was just not complying with the laws of both physics and logic`, because her eyes widened and she let out a little “Oh, shit.”

Camila gave the girl a knowing stare, a murderous expression on her pretty face.

“Ah,” Hannah blanked. She coughed into her hand and fidgeted with it, not knowing what to do, so John spared her.

“2011, my what a time that must’ve been, Hannah! As a child, having so much fun! Tell me what’s changed?”

Said girl had the decency to look ashamed as she stammered away. Camila, for all that it was worth, didn’t even try to hide her annoyance and irritation and indignation. She was an open book for John to see.

Of course, that was the perfect moment for Rook to radio in.

“Camila? Hannah?” her sweet voice chimed in. “Are you guys alright? You didn’t send in your confirmation.”

John took the radio to his mouth. “Deputy, dear, just the person! Interesting women Hannah and Camila are, don’t you think?”

A pause, and then: ”John, what have you done?”

“Preposterous, Deputy! It’s more ‘what they’ve done’! They broke into my home, of all places.”

“Don’t-don’t do anything to them, please. I’ll go there if I have to, just don’t do anything to them okay?” She was using a different frequency this time, a private between himself and the deputy.

“I’m not going to do anything to them, Rook.” he said softly. As monstrous as he may be, John would never ever hurt family.

“You know where to find us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after two months of not updating, i've finally overcome exams, laziness and writer's block. made the chapter extra long to make up for the inactivity;)


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